Your Paradoxal Existance
by A Jade Snowman
Summary: It all started when Clara found two Winchesters on her doorstep on a Wednesday morning. The TARDIS had been spotted at the site of multiple disappearances in the US. Why did this case feel so different from usual? If they knew how much this case would effect their past, present, and future alliances, they might have chosen to keep as far away as possible. Really far away.
1. Prologue

**Episode One placed after "Name of the Doctor" within Doctor Who. It's an alternate version of the Supernatural after "Pac-Man Fever."**

* * *

><p>Castiel, in the years before he met the Winchesters, could honestly say life was generally uneventful. Normally when there was an event, his actions were not the kind of thing he looked back on with any pride. He had been Heaven's puppet. Parts of this he didn't even remember completely, which he later discovered was because Heaven had been actively removing his memories. It was this reason the angel's past didn't come up too much. Rare it was that he took on a vessel, or <em>any<em> angel taking a vessel for that matter, and rarer still did he actually find himself in communication with anyone. The law stated that he was ordered to observe and watch over humanity, and make sure everything happened as it was supposed to. This was what God had ordered him to do, and no one argues with orders from the big man upstairs, no matter how dull the job he gives you happen to be. You follow orders, no questions asked. That's how life worked for a celestial being back before things got... complicated. That's how it normally worked. Castiel, however, even in the beginning, wasn't exactly the most normal of angels. He had something in him that wasn't exactly angelic. Something that was completely was foreign to most angels.

Curiosity.

He, even as a full-time seraph, could not help but find himself yearning to learn more about the species he watched. There is only so much you can know from just watching and listening to prayers. There was always the mysterious allure of actually getting involved. To pursue an interest. Out of all the angels, Castiel was the one who gave into this temptation the most, especially with the human world being so... _tempting_. He knew now that he probably had disobeyed much more than he had realized, as he was now aware that his fellow angels had been altering his memory to suit their needs.

Even still, there were some rebellious memories that his brothers and sisters had missed. With the amount of time that stretched through his entire lifetime, it was impossible for someone -even someone as skilled at brainwashing as Naomi- to locate and destroy every memory of disobedience from Cas. It was this reason the trench-coated angel remembered the few key _curiosities_ from his past.

One of these curiosities was a woman called Clara Oswin Oswald.

**August 24, 79 AD.**

It was a Friday the very first time he saw Miss Oswald. The angel didn't even know this much of her name as of yet. It started as beautiful and normal day. He was watching over a city by the name of Pompeii in Rome. The streets were bustling with vendors and words were shouted back and forth in Latin for various reasons. None of the actual words of the people made it to the holy being's ears. He heard the echoing of prayers being made, but none were directed in his general vicinity. This city worshiped pagan gods, not _the_ God. It wouldn't be too long, however, for the truth to spread to these people as well. Not that Castiel cared too much. He should, and he acted like he did, but in all honesty, he didn't exactly see any actual result coming out of more people following the one and true God. Whatever good thing was happening because of it, it didn't reach him. It wasn't his job to think about whether souls went up or down. His job was to observe the progression of humanity. Nothing less, Nothing more.

He felt a chill run through him at the same moment the Earth under the city quaked. _That_ pulled him out of his thoughts. It had been a long time since something that powerful and passed him by. He recognized it too. Castiel knew now that he wasn't the only one watching this place. Death was here too. He quickly observed the reaction of the people below, expecting to see panic at the quake, but the angel was surprised to find that all of them seemed completely unbothered by this. It had peeked his curiosity of how this would unfold. It didn't even cross his mind to interfere. That urge wouldn't come until it was much too late.

Hours passed, and the night was as beautiful as the day had been. _The calm before the storm._ A few wisps of smoke curled gracefully out of the mountain that shadowed the city. Some smelled it, though it was too dark for any citizen to be capable of seeing the smoke that came out of the mountain. Even the angel was starting to wonder if anything was actually going to happen.

Of course, something did happen. The top of Mount Vesuvius seemed to explode with the amount of that burst from the mountain. The night sky was suddenly alight again, except this time with fire and ash. Startled, the wavelength that Castiel currently was moved back a couple hundred meters. All that registered in his mind was complete confusion. _I wasn't informed this was going to happen._ As he focused back on the situation at hand, he immediately began to see reapers gathering, taking souls by the dozen up and down as they usually did. Castiel watched this for a moment, slowing forcing himself to return his gaze to his actual duties. Watching over humanity. Preferably the ones who were still living.

It was pure chaos. Mothers were forgetting their children in their rush to save themselves, and the living were already tripping over the bodies of the dead or dying. The angel watched in horror as a few more people were killed as a large column fell on them. He quickly moved to the outer edge of the city.

A man in a long, brown coat was running past him, pulling a protesting woman with hair like the fire of the mountain behind him. For some reason, he found his gaze strangely drawn to the pair, the foreign emotion of curiosity touching his mind yet again. Castiel followed.

The red-haired woman was shouting and crying all at the same time, to the point where he couldn't make out her words from the distance he was at from the pair. More than one strange thing caught his attention at once. First of the strange things was, they stopped running. Ash was snowing from the sky and chunks of rock were falling from the sky and they actually _stopped running_. It wasn't normal human behavior. Second, they had stopped in front of a large blue box.

_No, not a blue box._

A strange sensation flowed through his body as he stared at the blue box. He sensed something about it, like a magnetic pull tugging at his grace. In all his years, never had he felt this strange sensation before. It gave off the same kind of energy Heaven itself did, except it wasn't quite the same. Something was just slightly... _off_ about the box. He couldn't place what. It just seemed like its presence was an invasion of some kind of natural order. _Was it? _He knew he wanted to investigate further, but he knew he wasn't allowed. Instead, the angel watched the two humans walk into the blue box, the door shutting behind them.

"No!"

The voice was female and young. Also, it was surprisingly close to the celestial being. He turned, looking around for the source. His eyes landed on a wounded girl, not older than twenty, who was pointing at the sky above the blue police box. Perplexed, the angel looked in the direction of the woman's pointed index finger. An absurdly large chunk of rock was falling from the sky, directly aimed where the now _disappearing_ blue box was. A strange sound like metal whirled through the air as it began to disappear. The sound alone seemed to reach into the angel's grace and yank at it. He was actually pulled a few feet forward almost being dragged along with the box to wherever it was going. There was something he did know.

The box wasn't disappearing fast enough.

The boulder shot downward with incredible speed toward the strange box. Cas acted without thinking, just on pure instinct in the heat of the moment. In a bright flash of white light, a flash of pure angelic power made contact with the falling boulder, turning it into nothing more than dust cloud. By the time the cloud of dust dissipated, the blue box had completely faded away. He turned back, to look at the girl who had first alerted him to the rock falling. He had just made a very obvious display of his angelic power, and he was already regretting it. He had interfered. _Why did I do that?_ He took a step forward, invisible to the human's eyes. It didn't matter anyways, as the woman's eyes were closed. A realization came to him. She was praying.

To God.

She wasn't praying to some pagan god the Romans had wished into existence, she was directing her prayer in the right direction. A Jew in the middle of a Roman city, who would have guessed? For this reason, he could hear it. This is what he heard. _Thank you. Thank you. You did my job for me. He is safe, my clever boy._ The words were thought with absolution, with peace. A few soft words in Latin escaped her mouth.

"Run you clever boy... remember me."

It was at that moment the life faded from the woman's eyes. That left Castiel alone with his thoughts and his confusion. He expected to be interrupted by a reaper coming to retrieve the woman's soul, but no reaper came. He was alone. The angel looked down at the corpse, only to find, with surprise, that her soul was gone already. It had disappeared to somewhere, but the angel had no idea _where_ it had gone exactly. Just another mystery to add to the list.

_Who was this woman?_


	2. There Isn't a Manual

**April ****30th**, **2013**

It was 6:34 a.m. Clara Oswald quickly moved around the kitchen of the Maitland's, preparing a bag lunch for Angie and Artie, at the same time trying to get both of the children out the door so they weren't late for school... so _she_ wasn't late for school. She'd already missed too many days on her job without excuses or notice. It was wasn't like the high school teacher could go up to the school board and say she was missing days because she was saving the _flipping_ world. She would be thrown in the funny farm before she got excused day off for that. She finished the bag lunches, glancing up to see Angie holding Artie's book above her head just out of her brother's reach.

"Come on, Ang'! Give it back!"

With an inward sigh, the brunette woman cleared her throat, grabbing the attention of the two kids she was the nanny to. "Oi, you two! Cut it out! Are you ready to go?"

They exchanged looks, and Angie immediately gave Artie his book back. Ever since the Cybermen incident, they'd been hanging on her every word._ I might not be the Queen of the universe, but I'm the boss._ Angie went off to get her books, while Artie walked over to Clara to get his lunch. She handed to him, smiling slightly as at the kid.

"Finished that book yet?" she asked, pointing to his copy of _Summer Falls_. A small smile touched her face as she said this.

"I'm re-reading it!" he explained, as Angie came into the room with her book sack.

"You're such a nerd," she said to her brother as she grabbed her lunch from Clara and began walking over to the door, followed by her younger brother.

"I am not!" he protested.

Clara watched them for a moment, before she grabbed her purse and followed them quickly. The moment before any of them got to the door, the doorbell went off. Clara raised and eyebrow, perplexed, pulling the door open to reveal a two men in the doorway. Both of them, in her opinion, were quite attractive. They looked as if they had stepped out of some action movie and had landed on her front porch. Both were dressed in a very formal fashion, much more formal than Clara was used too. They were wearing suits, which contrasted to her business casual choice of dress that she was wearing to school.

The first that caught her notice was the taller of the two, who was without a doubt over a foot taller than she was. It is hard not to notice someone over a foot taller than you, in all honesty. He had long-ish brown hair that Clara bet Angie would've tried to braid if she ever got the chance. He had a heavy tan that looked natural, as if he spent a lot of time outside. However, it was dulled by the fact he was rather pale at the moment, like he might be ill with something. He was looking at her with mild interest. Just something about the way he held himself, though. It showed her that this man had lived through some very tough times in his life. Loss as well.

The other man stood directly in front of her, giving her a slight smirk that she would almost consider flirtatious. He had the same tan as the taller man had, who was standing half a pace behind him. He had a crew-cut haircut, the kind she associated with former soldiers a lot of the time. He looked it, too. She noticed the man had more than a few scars that looked like knife wounds. Or something. He had very pretty green eyes, which were currently studying her as if were looking for weapons.

Both of pulled out American FBI badges and showed them to her.

_There isn't a manual of how to react to these situations!_

She noticed she was staring, and she glanced down, taking notice of her kids. Angie's mouth was slightly opened, and Artie had the expression as if a bunch of his favorite book characters dropped out of the sky. He loved crime books, Artie did. She opened her mouth, then closed it again. Before she could speak, the shorter of the two spoke first.

"We're looking for a man called the Doctor, have you seen him?"

Clara raised an eyebrow. Of course this has something to do with him. Since when have the _Americans_ been involved?

"Maybe... why? Do you need his help with something? Who are you people?" It was the crew-cut's turn to hesitate. His words seemed forced.

"Yes... we need his help," he remarked, the phase coming out odd. She suspected it wasn't common for this man to ask for help. _Men are all the same_, she thought to herself. Crew cut seemed to pause, and the taller man took his place. He spoke in a much calmer way.

"This is Special Agent Ulrich. I am Special Agent Hetfield. We are looking for the Doctor because we are involved on a case involving a blue box. We have been informed is his trademark." He looked over at the other agent, from what Clara could tell was a question in his eyes. The other simply shrugged. Hetfield nodded. _Alright, they've definitely known each other for a long time if they can communicate with using the English language. _ He handed her a paper, which seemed to be a report on... blue box appearances in her area?

"It always seems to appear here on Wednesdays so we decided to start here. You are his companion, correct?"

"Well, you seem to be right on all points, but if you know anything about me, you'll know I'm a teacher. As a teacher you should know it's Wednesday. I have work in..." she checked her watch. "Exactly 18 minutes, actually. As much as I would love to chat with the two of you, I'm going to get fired if I miss any more days, so if would excuse me..." she grabbed the back of Artie and Angie's book sacks, leading them between the agents. She smirked as she began to walk toward the sidewalk. Coal Hill was only a block away from the house, easily within walking distance. Angie and Artie seemed to have dropped into a confused silence. _Better than having them mouthing off at the agents._

The agents exchanged looks, before following immediately behind the brunette.  
>"Missy, we're the FBI. We can get you out of a day of work and we will do it by force if necessary," Ulrich stated, catching up with her and the kids, the taller agent only a pace behind.<p>

Clara stopped suddenly, almost causing Ulrich to run into her. She directed Angie and Artie toward the school, before she turned to face the two men. "If you ever call me 'missy' again I will punch you in the nose," she stated simply to the shorter of the two men. Hetfield smiled, looking very amused by this statement, but Clara kept going.

"There are two reasons that I'm not believing you. First of all, I'm a British citizen and you've got no authority here. Second, unless you both had parents who loved Metallica, those are so not your real names. Now that we've been through that, who are you really?" The brown-haired girl waited for an answer as the two turned to face each other.

"I told you not to bring the old I.D. cards, Sam!" Sam raised his hands in defense, before glancing over at Clara.

"Alright, you caught us. My name is Sam Winchester, this is my brother, Dean."

Clara stared at them for a moment. "Why do you want to see the Doctor, boys? The man isn't due to pop in for another 10 hours. It's barely morning and I've got work!" She glanced up at the only just rising sun on the horizon, looking back at the men. _I need to hurry this along so I can get to work._

Sam responded, a bit awkwardly, "There have been a series of disappearances that have occurred in the states, and we haven't got any leads on how they happened in the States recently, and the only common factor is..."

Clara cut him off, "A blue box, right? You did some digging and you found, all throughout history, there has been one familiar name. The Doctor. A lot of the lore is centered in the UK, right?"

Sam simply nodded, "We needed information, so we decided we needed to come to over here in person."

Dean spoke up, "I didn't say anything about flying out here. It was all your idea, bitch."

Sam glanced at cell phone, "Jerk. I think you were making history by managing to not empty your stomach into a bag before the end of the flight."

Clara cleared her throat and the Winchesters both returned their attention to the brown haired girl. "So, basically you two just got here from America then?"

Sam was the first to respond, "Yeah, you could say that."

"Actually we came here straight he from the airport, doll. Didn't know that all the hotels here were so expensive."

"Don't call me doll, Winchester. My name's Clara. If you want to stay here for the next few hours, you can, just don't be around when Mr. Maitland gets here. He's going to be back from Cardiff in a week or so," she stated, "Wait, if you came straight here, where are your bags?"

Sam turned, walking over to a bush next to the house. He pulled two travel suitcases out of them promptly. Dean was still watching Clara, grinning. She raised her arms in exasperation.

"You know, right now, I don't feel like dealing with the pair of you. I'm late for work. Don't make yourselves too comfortable. The Doctor will be around in a couple of hours." She turned on her heel, walking away from the two men with an air of sass.

* * *

><p>"Looks like we have somewhere to stay," Dean told his brother as the girl walked off. "She's a piece of work..."<p>

Sam rolled his eyes, thrusting one of the suitcases into his brothers hands. "Don't flirt with the Doctor's companion, man," he remarked simply, before walking to the large empty house.

Dean raised is arms indignantly. "I wasn't! I'm just stating the God's honest truth." He walked up the step, shutting the door behind his brother with a snap.


	3. Not Stalking, Researching

April 30th, 2013

It was 12:32 p.m.  
>"Sammy, I can't take it anymore!" Dean was laying on the couch belonging to the Maitland's, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.<p>

"This place it too... classically suburban. It's getting under my skin, man." The older Winchester sat up, looking over to where his brother was. Sam was sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over a laptop as was his usual, doing research. As of late, the only thing that was on the Winchester's mind was to figure out the last Trial, though they couldn't do anything until they found Kevin to translate it. So Dean had looked for another case to keep his brother occupied, and this seemed to be the easiest not-involving-trials case they had one the list. He hadn't expected this to require a plane ride, or he would have never said anything.

After a few moments, he glanced up from his laptop at Dean, his gaze returning to the computer as he spoke, "You just survived a plane trip, Dean. I think you can handle a couple hours of a empty British house while Clara has to work," Sam told Dean, fingers moving steadily across the keyboard. He didn't seem too ready to talk, absorbed in whatever research he was doing. Dean wasn't going to let him, though.

"She's only a nanny to this place, right? Those kids definitely weren't hers, and the Mr. Maitland sounds like the kid's dad. She has a job as a nanny and a job as a teacher... workaholic much? She travels with the Doctor, it isn't like she needs to keep a job, much less two." Dean stood up, looking through the cabinets of the house shamelessly for some coffee mix.

Sam's eyes followed him from above the computer as Dean stood up, before looking back at the computer, "Maybe she just likes working with kids, or she likes staying busy. Not our place to question her habits," Sam responded, his fingers moving non-stop across the keyboard.

Dean was still shifting through the cabinets, "Tea, tea, more tea, tea... what is wrong with these people? There is no coffee." Dean shut the cabinet, before pulling up a chair next to his brother.

"They're British, Dean. British people like tea," Sam stated like it was obvious (which it sort of was). He glanced over at Dean, beginning to realize his brother probably wasn't going to let him continue his research in peace.

"What are you doing, anyway?" Dean questioned, leaning over to look at the computer screen. Sam rolled his eyes, swiveling the laptop to face his brother.

"Doing research on this "Doctor" person. I want to know as much of what we are getting into as possible before we go in, guns blazing," Sam remarked.

Dean looked at the computer screen, "It looks like you are stalking a number of women from the 20th and 21st century to me," he remarked, causing Sam to give him an annoyed, slightly pouty look and swivel the computer screen back to face himself.

"Not stalking." He stated, before elaborating. "Researching." He reluctantly closed the computer, finally turning to Dean. "Apparently, over the years there have been a list of disappearances that correspond with the appearance of the blue police box, the Doctor's calling card. All but one of them disappeared from somewhere in the United Kingdom. Some disappear for days at a time, for a few years or decade, some never are seen again, presumed dead by the police," Sam told Dean.

"All but one?" Dean questioned. "Who wasn't from the UK?"

Sam opened him computer again, having to look at the screen before answering his brother, "A woman by the name of Perpugilliam "Peri" Brown. She was college student majoring in botany during the early eighties. Residence in Pasadena, California. Disappeared on a artifact dig with her grandfather to the Canary Islands in 1984. There were, and I quote _'A bunch of crazy fire god worshippers lead by a psychopathic guy with a beard with a triangle artifact.'_ Also, mentions of a blue box." Sam looked up at Dean, who was giving him an _are you serious?_ look.

"She was the disappearance I found not linked to Britain. She never returned, also presumed dead by authorities," Sam continued, "A lot of the eye-witness accounts for this are completely wonky. None of these things match up. Only thing that never changes, there is always a blue police telephone box." He clicked to a different page, his eyes moving as he read.

Dean processed this, before speaking, "So... you said some didn't disappear forever, meaning they are still around? We could see if they know anything...?"

Sam nodded, "The most recent disappearances that happened involving the blue box have been these people."

Sam paused, reading from a list he had made, "Rose Tyler, Mickey and Martha Smith-Jones, Donna Noble, Lady Christina de Souza, Melody _"Mels"_ Smith, Amelia and Rory Williams, and," he waved a hand to indicate the space around them, "Clara Oswald."

Dean raised an eyebrow, "Mostly chicks, then... excluding Rory and Mickey. Can we interview any of these people?"

Sam paused, "Well, Rose, Mels, Amy, and Rory are presumed dead. Lady Christina is a wanted and is off police radar. She was last seen piloting (yes, piloting... as in flying) a London red bus away from the blue police box and police. Donna Noble has clinical amnesia for the year she disappeared; she won the lottery a year later. The Smith-Jones would the only known people, other than Clara, we might have a chance at contacting... though from these notes," he indicated the computer, "They're in deep, to say the least. She works for a "secret" government organization that deals with... would you guess... the supernatural and alien."

Dean's mouth opened slightly, "Woah, woah, woah, hold on. The Brits have basically government hunters. Is that what you're saying?"

Sam slowly nodded, "Looks like."

Dean leaned back in his chair, "Damn, so the government basically just knows about all the crazy here? I almost want to meet these guys." Dean just shook his head, astonished.

"I don't think we would. Two organizations, actually. UNIT and Torchwood."

Sam simply nodded, before continuing even farther, "It seems that most of his past companions have either started working for these groups, or did some serious crazy happens to them... no all bad, mind you. All of them seem to have similar traits... having some-what boring jobs, not being happy with their lives, but at the same time quite intelligent, willing to travel, and normally all-round being sort of adamantine."

Dean blinked at the last word, "Isn't that just the fancy way of saying unbreakable?"

Sam didn't look up from his computer. "Shut up."

Dean sighed, getting to his feet. "I am going to go find the nearest store and see if they take American credit or cash. We need coffee, and beer... and pie. I'm still recovering from that plane." Sam didn't respond, rolling his eyes. Dean paused, looking at his brother carefully.

"You should get some rest before Clara gets back," Dean told his brother, tone light, though his eyes said otherwise.

Sam looked up, "I'm fine, Dean. Go get your pie," Sam told him. Ever since the Trials, Dean had been worrying more and more about how the Trials were effecting his brother. Hurt in ways even Cas can't heal... Even so, Dean had a feeling right now wasn't the best time to start a conversation about his brother's health. Sam had seemed a bit better than usual lately, which was a good sign.

"Fine," Dean intoned, before pushing the door to the house open and walking out.


	4. Oh, Hell Exists

"You stole my TARDIS! You. Stole. My. TARDIS!" the Doctor repeated, completely indignant, watching as a short man walked around the console with a small grin.

"If you say that one more time, I will cut out your tongue," the man told the Doctor in return.

The bowtie-wearing man, who was currently tied to the chair behind to console, kept on going, "You stole my TARDIS, you tied me up..." he cried as the man started to walk to the door opening the door to the blue box and pulling a random person off the street into the TARDIS without warning, shutting the door behind him.

He paused for a moment as the person looked around in awe at the TARDIS, before pushing them unceremoniously down the TARDIS stairs, watching them fall down, probably breaking their neck in the process. The Doctor winced sympathetically as he heard a body hit the ground and a groan. The short brown-haired man walked off, again piloting the TARDIS away from where it had landed 20 seconds previously.

"...And you are kidnapping people! Why are you kidnapping people... and pushing them down stairs?" he leaned over, trying to see the person from around the console. He didn't see movement, and that didn't make him feel any better. _If that man is dead, it is on me. I shouldn't have let him get control of the TARDIS. How on Earth does he even know how to pilot it? He isn't a timelord! This doesn't make any sense! I have to be missing something._ The Doctor looked back up at the man.

"What the hell are you doing, Canton?!"

**20 minutes earlier...**

The Doctor was getting ready to visit Clara's house again for their latest Wednesday afternoon together, when the TARDIS was pulled off-course. The timelord grabbed hold of the console, flipping a few switches to stabilizer her as she was landing. Smoke billowed from the console as the whole room vibrated around them as they were pulled to a stop.

"Where are you taking us, old girl?" he murmured to the console, hearing the sound of her begin to land.

"2008…. Baton Rouge, Louisiana, America, Earth…. Guess we can go pick up some Gumbo for the road, hmm?" he patted the console with a loving hand, before walking to the TARDIS door and pulling it open. The Doctor found himself in a large warehouse, glancing around to try and figure out where he was.

A familiar voice came from a few feet away from him. A voice he hadn't heard in a very long time, but still in his memory. The last time he had seen the American had been when he had been still traveling with the Ponds. "Hello, Doctor. Got word from my sources that you were going to show your face down South. Didn't think it was true, but here we are…." The brown-haired man whom had spoken smirked, and an alarm bell went off in the Doctor's highly sensitive timelord brain. Something wasn't right with this. He ignored this instinct momentarily.

The Doctor spun on his heel, turning to face the man with a goofy grin on his face.

"Canton Everett Delaware the III! What a surprise!" He paused, "Wait, wait, wait, hold on. How are you so young? What year is this?" he sniffed the air, before adding, "It is definitely 2008… maybe 2009, but I doubt it. How do you look the same as you did in 1969?"

"I moisturize," Canton replied with a touch of sassiness. However, it didn't take long for him to get to the point. His eyes were fixed on the timelord. "Let's get one thing straight," he reached for his pocket, and calmly pulled out a gun and pointed it at the Doctor.

"I'm stealing your TARDIS, as a time machine with more power than the Sun… well, because I can. I would attempt to make a deal with you, but Canton doesn't have enough knowledge about you to know if you have a soul or not to deal with. So… this seems to be the other option."

The Doctor's mouth opened slightly, before closing again. Having a former friend suddenly pointing a gun at you was cause enough to startle the bowtie-wearing man.

After a second (and raising his hand due to the gun pointed at him), he spoke, "Haven't we gotten past the whole shooting people thing, Canton? You can't just hijack my TARDIS. You don't know how to pilot it. Only a _timelord _would know how. That would require me complying to being threatened at gunpoint. I don't respond well to violence."

Canton smirked, flicking the safety off of the gun. "And I don't mind shooting you, because I don't exactly need you. I _know_ how to fly your TARDIS. Other than a being hostage, you have no use to this current situation, so I suggest you get back in the TARDIS before I shoot you in the head."

**Now…**

Canton turned and looked at the Doctor, an eyebrow raising, "Canton? I am sorry to inform you that Canton is basically very much dead as of now. This meatsuit has been shot quite a large number of times of over the years, and I happen to be the only thing left keeping his consciousness alive. Hello, I'm Crowley," Crowley inquired, flicking another switch on the TARDIS before he turned to face the currently tied up Doctor. "And why?" he repeated, in a way that made the Doctor feel as if he were missing a very crucial piece of information. He hated missing crucial pieces of information.

The Doctor responded, "Yes, _why_. Why do you need my time machine? Why do you need the power…. Crowley. Whatever it is, I can help…" he stated, trying to get something that wasn't complete madness out of this Crowley. There was so much he didn't know about this current dilemma. He had no idea where he should even start to try and figure out what was going on, other than questioning this man directly.

The brown-haired man did indeed face the Doctor for a moment, speaking as if he were speaking to a child in a slow manner, "I don't need help from you, I need help from your TARDIS, as stated previously. Reason? First, this is sort of fun. Second, I need to get the Winchesters attention distracted from Hell for a little bit; they're already out of the country hunting for clues like the little puppies they are. Third...-"

The Doctor interrupted him, stuttering quickly, "_Hell?_ No, no, no... that doesn't exist, unless you mean a place that like _Hell_ in a metaphorical sense. 'Hell' is just a religious thing that people believe the bad people go when they die. I don't believe in such a thing. Hell isn't really... _existing_. And Winchesters, like the guns? I don't like guns, as I said before. Any type of gun. Winchester is also an American surname."

Crowley just smiled, a dark, creepy smile that sent the Doctor's nerves on end. "Oh, I assure you Hell exists," he told the Doctor in a dark tone.

"I am it's king."

His eyes turned to a solid blood-red color, and an smirk touched his lips at the Doctor's reaction to this. The bow-tie wearing man's eyes widened in shock. Whatever he was expecting, it wasn't that.

"King of Hell," he repeated, nonchalantly. "As for the Winchesters, you could say we have an full-time rivalry, part-time alliance situation going on." He straightened his suit, pulling a lever on the TARDIS as the blue box landed again. "All caught up? Well, I doubt it, but you are not getting any more information out of me, love,"

Crowley walked back to the door, repeated the grabbing random stranger from the street and pushing them down the TARDIS stairs process again. He shut the door, glancing at his watch before walking back to the console.

"Now, we have a date to get you to... it is Wednesday, isn't it?" He flicked a switch on the console, a look of amusement crossing his face at the look of horror that crossed the Doctor's.

_Clara._


	5. International Visitors

It was 2:35 p.m. when Clara walked through the front door of the Maitland's again. Dean was eating a slice of pie from the armchair in the living room, surfing channels, and Sam was now sitting on the couch with his computer on his lap, scrolling through his computer as he always was. A six-back of beers was on the kitchen table, in addition to coffee. Both Winchesters had had the time to dress out of their cheap suits, and into their normal clothing. It looked much more natural for them to be wearing their usual clothes instead of suits. The pair of them looked up in unison as Clara stepped through the door, locking it behind her. Sam leaned over and snatched the remote from his brother, muting the television.

"You know, I don't actually live here. I'm just staying here to watch the kids. I have my own apartment. You could've just gone there." she told them. "You've seemed to have already yourselves comfortable."

"Speaking of the kids," Sam interrupted, "Where are they exactly?" The girl and the boy he had seen her with earlier were missing, and Clara didn't seem the type to forget the kids. "This is where your blue box has reportedly showed up. It's where we show up."

"Both with friends. It was planned for them to be there for Wednesday. I sort of set up a system that the kids go to their friends on Wednesday for the rest of eternity," Clara responded, sitting on the couch next to Sam.

"It isn't everyday people go to me when looking for the Doctor. Especially cross-country visitors. Why are you here?" she asked, glancing between the Winchesters. Sam closed his computer, setting it to the side.

"We're hunters," he stated, assuming she would know about hunters, but by the expression he gave her, he quickly deduced that she didn't know.

"What'd'ya mean, hunters? Hunters of what?" Sam started to answer, but his brother cut him off.

"We hunt monsters. Ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, skinwalkers back in the States. Save a bunch of people by doing it too," he explained, stabbing his piece of pie with a white plastic fork and taking a bite. Clara raised an eyebrow,

"You know what? A few months ago, I would've said the pair of you were stark raving mad. I would've I didn't believe in ghosts and monsters," she hesitated, "Now, I believe you. Still doesn't answer why you are here," she looked between them.

"Hold on, earlier you said you were lookin' for the Doctor. You're not actually_ hunting_ him, are you? If you are, you'll learn very quickly that _I won't let you_." An indignant look crossed her face, and Clara stood back up. Sam and Dean exchanged looks. They had been hunting him; they had assumed the worst from the disappearances. Nothing like that ever turned out to be good if it was causing disappearances. Sam was having second thoughts now, due to Clara's reaction.

"We just want to talk with him, figure out what's going on," Sam remarked slowly. The brunette looked between the two men, eyebrows scrunched, trying to work out if they were being honest with her or not.

"Fine..." She murmured, sinking back into the chair. Sam was about to say something again, but, to his annoyance, was cut off again. This time, from a weird some coming from outside. At the sound, Clara immediately straightened and her eyes widened. A small smile danced across her lips immediately.

"That's him." She went to get up, but Sam grabbed her by the wrist, standing up next to her. He was a foot taller than her, and had to look down to meet her gaze.

"We should go out before you, just in case." While Clara was distracted by him, Dean set down his pie, walking for the door.

"Just in case what? I assure you I have nothing to fear from the man who is my oldest friend," she told him, pulling her wrist away from him. She stalked past Sam, and opened the door. _Just trying to keep you safe..._ Sam sighed, following after her quickly. Dean was the first to the door, opening it cautiously, Clara at his side. The taller Winchester fell into place behind him. The person who was at the door was definitely not the Doctor.

Crowley stood there.

"Seems like Moose and Squirrel got to Miss Oswald before I did. Pity..." he dark-haired man murmured.

Dean was first to react, "Hello to you too, douchebag. You're not a doctor in any universe, so where's the guy we're looking for?" Crowley smiled,

"He's a bit tied up at the moment, I'm afraid." Clara hadn't moved as of yet, but something that surprised all three men happen. Surprisingly fast, she took a step forward and punched Crowley squarely in the nose. Sam had to hold her back to stop from full on tackling the SOB.

"_What the hell have you done with the Doctor_?" she shouted at him. Crowley glanced at Sam,

"Short and bossy little attack puppy you've got there, Moose. I like her." Crowley commented loftily. "Actually, this is friendly visit. I'm just here to drop someone you know off." He raised a finger as if to say _wait a moment_. He disappeared via whatever type of demonic teleportation demons use, before reappearing seconds later with a familiar bowtie-wearing man. Crowley smiled,

"See you in hell, boys," he remarked, before disappeared with a snap of his fingers before either Winchester could make a move to stop him from leaving.

"Doctor!" Clara shouted, stepping forward and hugging the bowtie-wearing man around his neck. Despite the situation, he grinned broadly, wrapping is arms around his companion tightly.

"Soufflé girl! Sorry I'm late, a demon nicked my engine," he inquired, the word _demon_ not seeming to form naturally on his lips. He glanced over her shoulder, seeming to notice the two Winchesters for the first time.

"You know, there are two strange men on your front porch, Clara." He told her like she didn't already know. She pulled away at arms-length, checking him over to make sure he really was alright. As she did this, she spoke,

"First of all, this is the Maitland's house, not mine. Second..." her smile turned a bit lopsided as it turned into a smirk.

"Only two strange men?"

The Doctor pouted, looking as if her was going to respond to that, but he was interrupted by the older Winchester.

"What the hell is going on?" He questioned, Sam glancing over at his brother, then back at the pair of Brits. The Doctor wrapped one hand around Clara's shoulder in a unconsciously protective manner, causing the brunette to look at him with a gentle smirk. Sam wondered slightly if the two were actually _together_ together or just friends. The Doctor spoke, his hands moving as he spoke,

"Well, first of all, a demon ran off with my all-powerful time and space machine today and dropped me off in the 21st century with a bunch of stupid humans. Other than that, not much." Clara quipped,

"Don't take the human thing to heart. He insults species when he's upset," Clara remarked.

"There's no use standing out here. Inside, all of you!" She slipped out from the Doctor grip, leading the way inside. "I'm going to put a pot of tea on. One of you get the door behind you!" It turned out to be Sam who finally got the door, as both the Doctor and Dean were watching as Clara marched down the hallway toward the kitchen. There was an awkward moment while they all stood in the hallway, staring at each other.

It was the Doctor who first spoke, "Who are you two, and why are you visiting Clara's house? You're obviously not from around here, judging by the very American accents the pair of you sport." The Doctor narrowed his eyes in a slightly suspicious manner. Sam responded before his brother this time,

"I'm Sam; he's Dean. We're the Winchesters," Sam responded. "We're here because of the disappearances in America. Every time a person disappeared, there was a momentary appearance of a blue box in the area. Found out that the blue box was your calling card, and the same blue box had been appearing outside of this building every Wednesday for the past five... months," he hesitated, the pallor of his skin becoming a sickly shade of white in a few swift moments, before he began coughing hard. Dean noticed his brother had glanced over at him, fear stirring in the older man's eyes.  
>Sam stumbled, and Dean had to place a hand on his brother's shoulder to steady him.<p>

"Freaking Trials. You need to rest, Sammy," he murmured, noticing that a touch of blood stained Sam's fingers. "I'm fine, Dean..."

"No, you're certainly not."

The brothers had almost forgotten the Doctor was standing right there. He had taken out a stick with a green light, scanning Sam over with it. Dean looked at it distrustfully.

"What is that?" he questioned immediately, first thought that it might be a weapon. "Sonic screwdriver," the Doctor replied, looking at screwdriver.

"You seem to be sick on an _atomic_ level. No virus does that, not in the 21st century, at least... you said something about Trials?" The Doctor stowed his sonic screwdriver away, looking between the two Winchesters. Dean answered, hand still on his brother's shoulder.

"There are three Trials, and if Sammy completes them, the gates of Hell shut for good." The Doctor's non-existent eyebrows arched, about to make a comment, before Clara interrupted with a shout from the kitchen.

"Are all of you just going to stay in the hallway for the rest of the day or are you going to come in here and swap stories over tea?"

The Winchesters followed the Doctor down the hall quietly, Dean's eyes fixated on his brother. The Doctor made himself comfortable on the armchair, while Sam and Dean sat on the couch. A few seconds after, Clara walked in with 4 cups and a pot of tea on a platter. Her eyes lingered on Sam for a moment, as if she was wondering what had happened to him, though was too polite to ask outright. She poured herself a cup of tea, before sitting on the arm of the sofa.

"Sooo... you were saying?" the Doctor questioned, his eyes landing on Dean.

"Gates of Hell, which would be assuming Hell exists..."

"Oh, Hell exists," Dean broke in, a dark look in his eyes, something that was indicator that Dean might have an outburst. Sam noticed this, and Clara might've too. She was looking over her cup of tea at Dean in a nervous manner. The Doctor however, didn't notice. The Doctor shook his head, slowly,

"I'm quite sure it doesn't. I believe things I've seen firsthand. Most religions are base on a grain of truth, sure, but Hell? Bit out there, even for me. There is the void, which most people assume Hell originated from...-"

"Shut the _hell_ up," Dean responded, a dangerous note touching the hunter's tone.

"Both of us have been to hell and back. Literally. We have hunted and been hunted by things that crawled out of the pit ever since we were kids. This isn't some religious crap, man, this is real." It got very quiet in the room for a moment, the silence only broken by Clara setting down her cup of tea. Sam finally spoke, changing the subject,

"Crowley is the King of Hell. He doesn't do much which isn't planned or for a reason. If he stole the... TARDIS, wasn't it... he can't have anything good planned," his voice sounded a bit off from his coughing fit.  
>The Doctor looked between the Winchesters. He decided to ignore Dean's outburst, reserving his judgment until he had more hard evidence. Hopefully he would get more answers soon.<p>

"Crowley said something about kidnapping people as a distraction to the Winchesters, you two, it seems. It sounded like he wanted you out of the way while he did whatever he does."

The Winchesters exchanged looks, "We need to get to America," Dean stated.


	6. Damn Planes

The party of four found their way through the gateway of the plane without a hitch.

Well, no major hitch, at least.

Dean had gone into a quiet, sulking mode after his outburst at the Doctor earlier, and the Doctor... well... he just acted like his usual self. Clara noticed that he was a bit more scattered than usual, which was probably because his love affair with his snog box had suddenly become a long-distance relationship. Because of his missing box, he had become even more protective over Clara than usual. He was lurking around her a bit like a awkward mother cat, not leaving her side for longer than five minutes. Not that she minded. She actually found herself unusually happy with the extra attention from him. Clara walked onto the plane, the Doctor trailing behind.

Their seats were all clustered together in the back corner, which Clara counted as a small blessing. _Who knows what the other people on the plane would think if they heard any of the crazy stuff we talk about. Sam and Dean talk about demons and monsters like it's normal, and the Doctor and I talk sci-fi and aliens like we are talking about the latest gossip. All four of us would be brought to the funny farm for the rest of our natural lives._ Clara had a window seat beside the Doctor, who was in the middle seat. The seat next to the Doctor was empty. Another small blessing, in Clara's book. Sam sat directly behind the Doctor, and Dean sat in the aisle seat next to his brother. Because Sam and Dean were on the back row, there were only two seats.

She glanced over at the Doctor, who seemed to have gotten lost in his own thoughts. It was one of those moments she really wished to know what was going in that head of his. Clara had a feeling she knew what he was thinking about this time though.

"You know, we'll get the TARDIS back," she told him, her brown eyes scanning him over in a cautious way. She jumped slightly, as his response was a bit too loud for a rather quiet plane.

He looked over at her, grinning. "Of course we will!" He remarked a bit too quickly in response. He changed the subject immediately, causing Clara to raise an eyebrow. She didn't want to push him. Not right now, at least. "We're going to America, you know. How interesting will that be, eh? It's been years since I've been to America. Well, current times, at least," he smiled at her and she smiled back in return, feeling the plane begin lurch into motion under them.

She heard a bit of quiet cursing from the row behind her, and she turned to discover that the source of the cursing was Dean. She had forgotten that Sam had mentioned something about Dean having a fear of flying. Clara hadn't really thought it made sense earlier, though it was clear now Dean definitely hated flying. The man had gone a few shades of white paler than his usual complexion, and he had a death grip on the arm rest to the right of him.

"Don't fancy flying?" she asked, smirking slightly. Dean just gave her a look, and Sam answered for his brother.

"He drives everywhere," he informed. Clara's gaze switched to the younger Winchester, and saw that he was reading a book that was labeled _Demons & Other Things that Go Bump in the Night. _Clara couldn't find herself too surprised in the man's choice of reading material, with what she had already heard about the world the two brothers lived in. She heard a lot from just their casual conversation regarding Crowley and his demons, but she only understood very little about it.

"Shut your pie hole," Dean told Sam curtly, and both Clara and Sam grinned in unison. Clara listened for a moment as the brothers began talking amongst themselves. She turned back to the front as an air stewardess passed by them, looking out the window in a decidedly bored way as the plane took to the air. _I don't actually like planes that much either. Too boring..._ she thought to herself. She could only imagine how bored the Doctor was, a man who normally could get to places instantaneously with the power of the TARDIS. She glanced over at him, only to find him staring at her curiously.

"I guess you're bored too, then?" she questioned him, raising an eyebrow.

"There's always something interesting wherever you go, Clara," the Doctor responded, smiling at her, "Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes you have to go looking for it. Sometimes it is right under your nose. That's happened to me a few times, you know. Things hiding right under my nose." She could tell his attention had moved away from her, and to their surroundings. Not that she exactly minded. Maybe he could find something fun to do on a plane. Until the Doctor found something interesting, however, she was going to watch as clouds passed by the window... and maybe take a short nap.

* * *

><p>Dean was not enjoying his plane ride. Seriously, he would rather take on a couple of vampire nests instead of even stepping foot on a plane. They had another choice if he was honest with himself, though right now it didn't seem like an option to Dean. Angel travel. Still uncomfortable, but better than 2 eight-hour plane trips across the Atlantic. However, neither Winchester felt comfortable getting Cas involved, and for good reason.<p>

Castiel was MIA with the angel tablet, and there was no way to be sure where he was or what sort of trouble he was in. _Damn angels._ It was enough to make it so he had no urge attempt to call the angel up for something he wasn't even sure was a _something_ yet. Their lead had been for a blue box which caused disappearances, and what they found was a man who dressed like it was the 1950's who was naïve, it seemed, in all things monster. Not to mention he was apparently an alien, as Clara had gone over with him at some point. The older Winchester honestly thought Clara must have lost a few marbles when she had said it, but upon seeing the Doctor with his own eyes... he wasn't so sure. The man was intelligent, though somehow had missed all the crazy shit Hell and Heaven had been doing on Earth for the past years. One would have to be an alien to not even have heard of any of it. Dean connected the dots; he was in an airplane with an alien. Awesome. Now all he had to do was focus on not freaking out on this trip.

Sam nudged him on the shoulder, and Dean glanced over. "What?" he asked, not really feeling like chatting with being in the air. All he really wanted to do was get to the ground as quickly as possible, and turn on the classic rock to a blare in the Impala.

Sam responded in a low whisper, "You do still have the stuff just in case this situation goes South."

Dean pulled a small container out of his pocket, "I brought holy water." He nodded slightly, before both brothers fell back into a comfortable silence. His eyes wandered to where Clara was, and he noticed she had fallen asleep, her brown hair covering a majority of her face. _She travels with an alien through time and space. She probably is used to flying._ His stomach did another summersault as the plane hit another spot of turbulence. _Damn planes._

Dean glanced over at the Doctor, hearing a slight buzzing sound emanating from the seat. He waited a few seconds in hope that it might just go away, but after a couple seconds he started to get annoyed. "What the hell are you doing, Doc?" Dean questioned, leaning forward. The Doctor had the sonic screwdriver out, and was looking at it with concern. He noticed that Clara stirred at the sound of the buzzing; it must be a familiar sound to her.

"Don't curse! I'm just adjusting the settings of the sonic. Also I don't know why Americans like yourself insist on calling me Doc..." he remarked, pressing a few buttons on the screwdriver as he spoke. Dean grumbled a few more curses spitefully under his breath, before he leaned back in the airplane seat.

Sam spoke up, looking mildly interested, "Why?" Clara responded to Sam before the Doctor could. Her voice sounded sleepy. Her brown hair was a bit messed up on the side her head had been resting on the plane's window. She looked a bit dazed, like she just woken up from a dream she couldn't quite remember or didn't understand. Dean recognized the look; it was one he had seen on Sam more than once after he woke from a nightmare. The Doctor apparently didn't notice, but Dean knew the look. Even still, she responded in a calm fashion to Sam.

"Because he's bored. It's what he does when he's bored...-" The Doctor interrupted her, not looking up from the screwdriver.

"No, I'm actually just adjusting the settings to make sure there isn't anything dangerous on the plane," he remarked distractedly.

"Define dangerous," Dean stated shortly. Still distracted, the Doctor didn't answer. Clara looked over at him, her coffee brown eyes sleepy. He realized it was normally the time Clara would be sleeping, her being a Brit and all, in addition to the other thing.

She yawned before responding to him, "Umm, anything that doesn't ring normal, basically. Weird energy signatures, something alien, something not human, bombs... stuff like that." Dean nodded, before going silent. That didn't sound good. _If something goes wrong with this plane ride... there is nothing but ocean under us._ The sonic screwdriver changed to a quieter, lower-pitched tone before warbling.

The Doctor frowned, before he stood up suddenly, moving into the aisle. Clara looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. "Alright, what is it?" she asked, blinking sleep out of her eyes.

"There's a cybermite on the plane."

Whatever that was, it caused Clara's expression switch from sleepy and slightly bored to shock and slightly frantic in a few short seconds. "_What?_ Why is there a cybermite on the plane? Are there any cyber_men_?" Dean was lost, and it didn't help that a spot of turbulence occurred the moment this happened.

Sam voiced what was on Dean's mind, "What's a cybermite, exactly?" he questioned, looking between the two for answers. The Doctor turned, facing Sam, going into a quick explanation.

"Cyber technology. It looks like a little metal worm no bigger than your pinkie. Practically indestructible. However, they bite. With metal teeth. Also, if you let them crawl near you face they can take control of your body and turn you into a soldier under the force of Cybermen. Basically, whoever they grab will become a killer and start lashing out at everyone around, trying to convert them." The Doctor spoke quickly, and possibly a bit too loudly.

Dean saw Sam raise an eyebrow. "Umm, okay," he responded, obviously not used to so much sci-fi logic in one serious sentence. "How do you get rid of it, exactly?" The Doctor walked up and down the aisle, scanning around.

A few people gave him annoyed looks, though one petite woman sitting next to a sleeping college student looked fascinated. Dean was the only one to have noticed her until she spoke up, "Umm, excuse me, sir? Is that a portable sonic probing device?"

The Doctor glanced at her, when she spoke, looking a bit surprised, "Well, no. It's actually a sonic screwdriver..-"

The woman interrupted him. "Does the _sonic screwdriver_ give off pulses of sound to scan things within its surroundings?"

The Doctor looked a bit taken aback. "Yes, it does..."

She interrupted again. "Portable sonic probing device." The Doctor paused, before scanning her. Clara was grinning slightly at the fact this random woman had one-upped the Doctor.

"Who are you exactly?" The Doctor asked, lowering the sonic.

The woman arched an eyebrow, "Doctor Jane Foster. Astrophysicist with three degrees. Carry on with whatever you were doing," she remarked, leaning back in her chair. Dean noticed the woman was still watching the group carefully, obviously still interested.

Sam spoke up again. Jane had distracted the Doctor from his former question, which he thought was probably quite important right now. "How do we defeat a cybermite, exactly?" he asked again. The Doctor twirled the sonic screwdriver, looking back at the tall Winchester.

"A controlled sonic pulse should put it out of action. The only thing is, we have to find it to that. Normally I would just to a wide sonic pulse to get rid of it, but that probably wouldn't be the best thing to do while being on a plane."

Sam glanced around, before nodding. If cell phones supposedly messed with a plane's instruments, who knows what alien technology would do. Possibly down the plane or something. "So... look for a metal bug crawling around. I can do that," Sam remarked, getting to his feet and beginning to search the floor for something that looked like what the Doctor described.

It didn't take long. Almost as soon as Sam bent down, Dean saw a tiny metallic thing with grotesque shark teeth jumped at his brother's nose. Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn't been that. With a couple of curses, he jumped up, instinctively reaching toward the place his gun would normally be, but wasn't. He was one a airplane, no weapons allowed. He immediately heard the buzzing of the sonic screwdriver -probe, whatever- and the thing stopped moving.

"Found it," Sam remarked half-heartedly, pulling himself back up to his feet. Now, half the plane was giving them odd looks, and Dean had gotten to his feet, looking ready to punch someone. Sam got back to his seat, while the Doctor picked up the cybermite, scanning it with his screwdriver.

"Okay, I think we should be safe, although it could be faking to get us off guard." Sam pulled his brother back down into the seat next to him, while his brother looked at the Doctor like he had lost it.

"It's a robot... thing. How could it be playing dead?" The Doctor didn't answer, pulling a metal box out of his pocket and putting the cybermite in it. He locked it, before returning box to his pocket.

It turned out they didn't have any more trouble with cybermites that trip, which Dean was quite happy about. For the rest of the trip, it actually went rather smoothly. None of them brought up any important topics, such as the Trials or Castiel and the angel tablet, but more small talk sort of things. Dean was mostly silent (as he was air sick). However, in contrast, Sam got into a few conversations with everyone around, including the Doctor once or twice. He noticed the Doctor spent a little time talking to Jane Foster about crazy space-y stuff for a bit. Sam only understood bits of it. Clara slept most of the flight, or at least acted like it. Sam thought he saw her eyes slit open every once in a while. He felt like he might want to talk to her about the nightmare he had a feeling she had, but he didn't think it would be pleasant if he was trying to have a serious conversation with her and he ended up puking on her. Considering all the trouble that could have happened, they finished the flight without any major problems.


	7. Castiel

It was a cloudy day in New York City. The Doctor and his companion were sitting on a bench as they waited for the two Winchesters to retrieve their vehicle from parking. A vehicle they had heard quite a bit about ever since they had gotten off the plan. Dean talked about his 1967 Chevrolet Impala the same way the Doctor talked about his telephone box. As they were walking out of the airport earlier, a statement Clara made described the entire situation quite well in the Doctor's opinion.

"Boys and their toys."

Well, it was quite fitting, he had to admit.

The first thing the Doctor did upon getting off the plane involved dismantling the cybermite. It was best to get something like that out of the way before it became a significant problem. He knew he should probably be wondering why a cybermite had ended up on a airliner in the first place, but he had a lot on his mind currently. First of his problems was that a demon had his TARDIS. Well, a self-proclaimed demon, at least. The Winchesters also seemed to be going along with this whole _monsters are real_ thing. Which lead to his second problem; both Sam and Dean Winchester didn't seem like the most stable of individuals. Which was saying something, coming from the Doctor who was pretty insane himself. He wasn't an expert in medical problems, but he knew stress when he saw it, and Sam and Dean had seen more problems in their lives than the average timelord. Probably lived through more. The pair might be in their mid-30's, but both of them had the air of battle-worn soldiers who had seen multiple wars and unspeakable horrors. Not to mention, while they had been on the plane ride, more than once he had noticed both of them basically zone out of reality on a few occasions. Not like someone who was lost in thought; he even did that sometimes. No, when he saw Sam or Dean zone out, their eyes weren't seeing anything. It was like the people you see in elderly homes, who are no longer able to comprehend the reality of what was going on around them all the time. That kind of thing he saw in people -not just humans- who had been pushed past their psychological breaking point, and were somehow still moving forward.

The Winchesters were proof enough to start making the Doctor start to realize that they might be digging into some very dark corners of the universe in the near future, and the Doctor wasn't quite sure he wanted to drag his companion into this. Whatever this was exactly. He was still a bit confused about everything that was going on in general, as he had no experience with this sort of thing. Well, nothing he could place in his memory at the moment. Something else was bugging him. _If this is as dangerous as it seems to be, I would be surprised I haven't encountered anything connected to this,_ he glanced up as the car Dean had described pulled up in front of the place their bench was. Clara had already stood up, picking up her bag. _Something as big as demons walking the Earth, or at least aliens who are under the illusion that they are demons, is something I would notice. Especially if they are posing a threat to humans. _He resigned himself that he would figure that out later. He hopped to his feet, refocusing on the situation at hand. As his companion got into the car, the Doctor studied the black vehicle with a raised eyebrow, before getting into the seat next to Clara.

"I like your car. Not as fast as a TARDIS, mind you, but it is still quite beautiful," he remarked to Dean as the car began moving forward. From one of the car's mirrors, he thought he saw the beginnings of a crooked smile on the hunter's face. He must've said something right. For once.

The Doctor glanced over at his companion, smiling at her. The brown-haired woman had been staring out the window, but she glanced over in his direction when he looked over to her. She had a sort of distant look in her gaze, though he didn't think anything of it. He had probably just interrupted a deep thought. Oh well. Might as well fill up the space with words. "Clara, it's the land of opportunities, you know. America, when was the last time you were in America?"

Clara for a moment, clearly taking a moment to think about it. "Well, I've never been to the US personally, although my echoes might be a different story."

For the slightest moment, he had forgotten about her echoes. Of course she had been in America. If he had, she had at some point. Had this visit to the Big Apple triggered any of her memories about her past lives? It was a question that was currently going to be left unsaid and unmentioned. It was better that way, as long as she didn't see anything too significant to her echoes. The Doctor would notice if she needed assistance with her echoes... right? Admittedly, he was a smidge worried that she was starting to be able to hide if she remembered anything. It meant he didn't know what she had seen of his past and what hadn't been seen. And there were a number of things he definitely didn't want his companion to be a witness to. He simply gave her a nod, before he looked over at the Winchesters. Classic rock blared from the speakers. This broke him from his train of thought about Clara, and he remembered the much, much more important thing.

Demon or alien, whatever was wearing Canton's skin had his TARDIS and knew how to fly it.

"Is there any significant reason Crowley would want to have my TARDIS of all things? What would do with it?" His answer came from Dean, who was tapping out a beat on the steering wheel as he drove.

"Well, the little douchebag has been after the tablets. We know he is currently after the demon tablet, which is with Kevin. Where ever the hell Kevin ran off to," he paused for a moment, glancing at his brother. "As for the, um, other tablet, it could literally be anywhere. However, it's definitely not in Crowley's hands, as I think we would know that." Dean turned a corner a bit sharper than necessary, taking a back road out of the city. Sam spoke up, glancing back at the two in the back seat. Despite the fact the Doctor wasn't aware of this, both Dean and Sam had made and agreement it would be best to not mention the angels yet. If the dude was having trouble with believing in demons...

"A friend of ours is keeping it away from Crowley. He's MIA at the moment, though he'll pop up sooner or later. He always does," Sam responded.

The Doctor raised a non-existent eyebrow at this before responding, "You didn't exactly answer my question. Why would he want the TARDIS?"

"Sorry, Doc. Haven't got a clue," Dean responded, not really sounding too sorry, "I have a feeling we will figure it out soon."

* * *

><p>The bit of talking upon leaving New York had been almost immediately replaced with an awkward silence and more classic rock than Clara had heard played in years. Neither party within the car had enough trust in the other group to really start up a conversation. It was enough to make Clara feel both uncomfortable and tired. She had slept quite a bit on the plane; however there didn't seem to be a better option other than sleeping at the moment. The trip was almost over, though was probably going to last a bit longer. Sam had mentioned the place they were going was Kanas. It was quite a distance from New York City, obviously. They had only just crossed the state border, heading toward the bunker. The Doctor had been quite lost in his own thoughts ever since he had gotten off the plane earlier, and she didn't have the heart to disturb him. The whole angels and demons thing seemed to have freaked him out a bit. So, Clara leaned her head against the window of the car, listening to the hum of the old car as it drove down the back roads.<p>

Earlier, when she had been on the plane, she had a bit of a scare. When she had fallen asleep the last time, she had a very disjointed dream which she couldn't remember. She had a feeling it might have involved an echo, but it wasn't useful if she couldn't remember a single detail from the dream. Well... no details other than one emotion. Fear. The kind of fear that made you want to curl up in a ball and run away at the same time. _It was just a dream._ Her thoughts of trying to piece her last dream together soon started to become a bit of a dream in itself.

However, her dozing was interrupted when Dean slammed down on the breaks, sending the car to a screeching halt. Clara had to use her elbow to prevent herself going head first into the back of Dean's seat. On complete instinct, she swung her other hand out and placed it against the Doctor's chest to prevent her friend from going head first into the windshield. The Doctor never wore a seatbelt when he needed to, that was for sure. Her heart leapt into her throat as she felt the car careen to the side.

Dean was swerving the car out of the way of something, she wasn't sure what yet. She was too busy keeping Chin Boy from being tossed out of a window. The moment the vehicle stopped however, she shouted, "What the hell was that for?"

She didn't get a response, as Dean was already out of the car, his brother right behind him. Clara removed her hand from the Doctor's chest, slumping back in the seat momentarily. After a quick check to make sure the timelord was okay, she began in unbuckle, her hand already on the door to push the door open.

"Cas!"

The name ripped through her like a bullet, immediately breaking her consciousness into echoes. It has floated in through the open door of the Impala, but the name was enough to trigger a tidal wave of memories, all from different moments in time, different echoes. It was like a wall of glass had been shattered, tearing her back into the pieces she had been in inside the Doctor's timeline. She froze, every single muscle in her body stiffening and her brown eyes dilating. She was no longer in the Impala. Her echoes pulled her into the past as countless scenes flashed before her eyes.

_It was Christmas Eve in 1842, one of the only times the Doctor was aware of her existence before she died. She had been let into the TARDIS, and her echo was looking around in wonder. That ended almost immediately, when she felt hands grab her around her waist, pulling her back. Cold, frozen hands. She was pulled off the cloud, her Doctor screaming her name after her. There was the sound of falling, before the feeling of every bone in her body breaking at once. Everything was blurring into darkness and pain. Through the fence, she saw a man with a coat, watching her._

_It was another Christmas Eve, this time in the 1851. She was young, only about 14 in this echo. There was a invasion of Cybermen. The version of the Doctor was the tenth, pin-striped suit and all. He was herding the rest of the children out of, however there was a cyberman raising its blaster at him from behind. He didn't see it. Without a word, Oswin broke from the crowd of children and put herself from between the Doctor and the cyber blast. Her brown eyes flew open in shock as pain coursed through her body. The Doctor didn't notice, but another man in a trench-coat did. The last thing she saw before dying was a shadow bending over her, and a small hint of curiosity entering a set of crystal blue eyes._

_It was March, 1942. She was in New York City now. People bustled around her, most smiling. She (her name was Connie now) was smiling too. She was on the arm of a soldier boy, watching a presentation for future technologies. The name of the company and the soldier boy was long forgotten in her mind, however it wasn't significant. As she danced with the man later on that day to a slow tune, she made eye contact with a man with almost familiar blue eyes. Just another face in the crowd, although gave the man a small smile from over the shoulder of the person she was dancing with. He nodded to her, before a dancing couple passed in front of them. The man was gone, and she never saw him again in that echo. Connie didn't live much longer anyways._

_It was the year 1968, this time in London again. Her name was Clara again. She was walking to the café she worked at, making soufflés. Unlike her other echoes, this version of herself knew how to make a soufflé without burning it. The Doctor in a huge brown coat ran past her, and some unknown instinct made her drop everything she was doing and chase after him, her long chestnut hair flying behind her. She had almost halved the space between her and the Second Doctor when she tripped over a metal can. Her foot slipped from under her, pain coursing through her probably broken ankle. That didn't stop her, however. She somehow got back to her feet, adrenaline pushing her forward. Her soul focus was to do... something. She didn't know what she had to do she just knew she couldn't stop. Not paying attention, she limped into open road, calling one word that pierced the air. "DOCTOR!" She didn't see the car driving straight for her, moving much too fast to have time to stop. Something pushed into her, but it wasn't the car. A man wearing a trench coat appeared seemingly out of nowhere, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her out of the way of the moving car. This brought her echo to her senses. She looked at the man who saved her, completely shocked and not really sure why. He asked her one question, a childish curiosity in his blue gaze._

_"Who are you?"_

The scenes began to break up into a less intelligible pattern, breaking up into just quick flashes and images from almost all of her echoes who were on Earth. All of them had seen the figure, however she only ever remembered him intervening once in time for them to speak. The time in 1968 when he saved her from her usual fate.

_"Clara Oswin Oswald. You?"_

This entire memory episode lasted only a few second, but she pressed a palm to her head, trying to keep her focus. Another puzzle piece that had been missing within her memories had been dropped back into place. It was excruciatingly painful, though at the same time very satisfying. Something was put where it was supposed to be in her mind again. She was _supposed _to know this.

_"Castiel."_

The vision was over. Clara looked up saw the worried gaze of the Doctor on her. The timelord had already gotten out of the vehicle, but was looking back in when he realized his companion hadn't followed him. He looked like he was about to ask her what she had seen, like he normally did after she remembered something. Well, when he noticed at least. He didn't always. She knew he was always nervous she was going to see something he didn't want her to see, however impossible it was to avoid that. She had already seen a majority of what he didn't want her to see. Instead of answering, she immediately flung the door open, her eyes widening upon seeing the person she had just remembered _injured_, with Dean and Sam helping him toward the vehicle. Clara went over to help, just as Castiel looked up. He apparently had not noticed Clara or the Doctor until that moment. The angel froze in his progress toward the Impala, looking as if Clara had unexpectedly sprouted angel wings or something.

"That's... unexpected," he stated after a moment, staring at her like she was a ghost. His blue eyes looked over at Sam and Dean, who were both looking at her as well, then to the man in the bowtie who was standing next to the Impala. It was like he was making sure everyone else saw her too.

"You're telling me," she responded simply, opening the door widely to make it easier for Sam and Dean to get the angel in the back seat.

Dean broke into the conversation, "Hold up. You two know each other? How?"

Castiel answered immediately, his eyes still fixed on Clara. He groaned in pain upon sitting down where Clara had been previously, "It's a long story, one I don't think I completely comprehend at the moment."

"You'll be glad I got the answers we were looking for a while ago, old friend," Clara told him numbly, still getting bits and pieces of events scattering in her mind. The Doctor looked at her from above the roof of the car, his expression clearly saying. _Explain._

"Later," she told him softly, walking around to the other side of the car where the Doctor was. She slid back into the car, getting in the uncomfortable middle seat, between the Doctor and Castiel. She was the smallest, anyways. She buckled her seat belt as the car began moving, looking at the angel worriedly. There was a lot of blood. _Can he lose that much blood? I haven't seen him lose that much blood before. Why isn't he healing?_

"Cas, what happened?"

The question belonged to everyone in the car, but the person who voiced it first was Sam. So, the angel began to go through the events of what had happened. Naomi and Crowley, hiding the angel tablet, escaping... all the recent events that had lead him to laying in the middle of a road with a wound in his stomach. Sam had given Cas a towel to stop the blood flow. By the time they pulled up to the bunker, Cas had covered the basics. Through most of the time, he was looking between the Doctor and Clara in a bit of a surprised way. A surprised as the angel could look, at least.

She helped him out of the car with Dean's assistance, and Sam walked with the Doctor to the door of the bunker to unlock it, holding both Dean's bag and his own. The Doctor rolled Clara's bag behind him. With the day she had been having, she didn't find it too unusual for everyone to be going to stay in a abandoned-looking bunker. She had to admit, though, she was very surprised by the inside of the place. The walls were lined with books, and the ceilings were high and beautiful. The Doctor looked like a kid in a candy store. She didn't have much time to look, however, as Dean was already leading Cas to a bedroom down the hall. By now, the angel was only just clinging to consciousness. For the first time, Clara realized Dean looked genuinely worried about the well-being of the angel. She saw the same worry she had reflected in his eyes.

"Come on, Cas. Stay with us," Clara heard Dean grumble as they lowered the angel down onto the bed. The moment the angel was set down, the hunter went to one of the cabinets and began searching through them for something. Clara pulled up a chair opposite from where Dean was, wanting to stick around but not get in the way.

"Will he be alright?" Clara asked quietly, her brown eyes wide. Dean apparently found what he was looking for, before sitting next to Cas and beginning to stitch the wound up. For some reason, Clara didn't feel uncomfortable at the sight. She felt well accustomed to the sight, and she wasn't quite sure if she should be freaked out about that or not. Dean responded after a moment, rather gruffly.

"He's an angel, as you apparently already seem to know. He'll be up on his feet by tomorrow, and probably be healed by the end of the month. No need to worry." When he was done stitching the wound of the angel, he pulled up a chair and looked across the sleeping angel at Clara. His green eyes met Clara's coffee brown.

"The real question is, how exactly to you know Cas? He isn't exactly the most social people I know." He looked at Clara as if studying her, trying to figure her out. It was a look she was quite used to receiving by now.

"It's a long story..."

"I've got all day, sweetheart."

She looked up from the angel at the elder of the Winchesters. There wasn't any point in not telling him, from her point of view. He would understand as a hunter, right? He had probably heard stranger. Or at least closer to it. She opened her mouth to speak, before she was interrupted by a bowtie-wearing man who was now standing in the doorway.

"Could I borrow my companion for an moment?" he questioned with a pleasant smile. She glanced over at Dean, who was already back to tending to Cas' wounds. He didn't say anything. There was obviously still a lot of tension between Dean and the Doctor. She had a feeling he wanted the same thing Dean wanted, an explanation. However, you could never be sure with the Doctor. Not to mention it was going to be a much tough time explaining an angel of the Lord to the Doctor. It was because of this she got up and followed the Doctor out.

"Seems like I'm not needed for now here. I'm coming..." She quickly followed the Doctor down the hall into a spare room.


	8. Some Things You Shouldn't Know

Clara turned to face the Doctor as he shut the door behind her with a soft thump, his gaze on hers. She already knew what this was about, just from the look in his old eyes. The Doctor had seen her fall into the history for a moment, and he wanted to know just exactly how far she had fallen into his past. He wanted to know what she had remembered. The Doctor knew the man named Castiel had trigger whatever she remembered, but he had no idea what exactly. He was probably particularly worried that she hadn't told him immediately after it happened like she had made a habit of. _Or he's just worried if I saw something he didn't want me to see._ Either way, he was standing there, giving her an imploring look mixed with concern.

"Where did you end up this time?" the timelord asked her as way of greeting, voice a notch softer than it had been all day. When he asked this, about a dozen different dates, times, and painful deaths floated to the surface of her consciousness easily. Normally they weren't so many at once. One a normal day, she wouldn't have reacted enough for the Doctor or anyone to even notice. This definitely wasn't normal however. One date stood out the most, however it was the one she felt the least like explaining. _1968._ It was the one Castiel had saved her in, actually speaking to her. So, instead of explaining this date, she picked the other date that was surprisingly clear in her mind.

"I was in New York City, 1942," she told him in response. As she spoke, she put her hands in the pockets of the jacket she was wearing. The story of Clara "Connie" Oswald began to form on her lips before she had time to even think about it.

"It was a clear night in March. I was at the Stark Expo, watching the advertising of new weaponry for World War II. Now that I think back, most of the stuff there was a bit more advanced than what I would normally expected of the forties. It was the location of a double date I was going on with a soldier boy. It was a rather nice date, and I wouldn't have minded seeing him again. However, both of us died before we could go any farther. He went into the War within a week after that. One of the last things I, Connie, did before I took a bullet for you was weep over the death certificate that was sent to me through the government with his name on it."

_If only I could actually remember the soldier's name._ Even though something like this felt like a stab through the heart, she clenched her jaw and prevented the Doctor from seeing how much the remembering hurt. It always hurt, no matter how well she covered up the fact sometimes. Despite this, she felt a hand gently touch her shoulder in a comforting way, before the timelord took a step back, regarding her carefully.

"Yes, I remember going to that time. Lot of guns. I went there with Rose during the my Ninth Incarnation, before I went to investigate the superior technology. Turned out it was just a secret Nazi organization, an alien artifact, and a few very smart men behind it. I could only get involved so much. A lot of fixed points in time were floating around that day. It still leaves one question." The man looked at her from across the bed that separated them, his eyes still fixated on her. She glanced away slightly as he spoke.

"How is this Castiel involved? Whoever he is, he seems to already be acquainted with these hunters, and it was obviously his appearance that triggered your memories at that exact moment." He trailed off, looking at her for an explanation. _Cas._ She quickly formulated the right words to say, before glancing up at him.

"You're not the only person to have noticed my echoes throughout history. Castiel was one of those people who noticed more than one version of me. It's not really surprising he did either, considering who he is. The only surprise is he actually intervened once. Not the time in New York, but another time. In New York, while I was dancing with the soldier boy, I saw him watching me from a distance. He never said a word to me, I never said a word to him."

Clara could almost see the questions forming in the Doctor's eyes. Now would probably be the only moment they got to exchange information, so he spoke quickly,

"Throughout history? The man looks a bit young for a human who was around in the forties as well as current times. Another time traveler then?" He paused when she shook her head.

"He isn't exactly human. You aren't either, just as a friendly reminder."

"He seemed quite human when I saw him," he began, before he paused, thinking about it a bit more thoroughly, "No, nevermind. An injury like he has... a human would've been dead before he even got here..." Another pause. She saw the Doctor's eyes darken. The timelord was accustomed to violence, that she knew, but she was aware that he wasn't used to this sort. He was used to things you could look for and outsmart. He was used to being able to fix things with a clever little plan.

The Doctor, however, wasn't used to the evil of demons. Creatures that will torture you for all eternity until one goes insane, and kill people for the thrill. Even the daleks weren't like this. They didn't have emotions. They didn't torture for fun. _He doesn't even know about that yet. Don't you dare scare him, Clara._ He spoke after a moment.

"So, he's someone who doesn't seem to age, and is or was watching Earth closely enough to discover your situation. You said it was surprising that he intervened at all?"

She nodded slowly, not quite meeting his gaze.

"Why? Also, how many echoes do you remember seeing him? You ever said what he is exactly as of yet either?" The number of questions the Doctor had was simply because of the sheer amount of things he didn't understand in this situation. He didn't like not understanding something, that she knew. _But there are some things you really shouldn't know, old friend._ She paused for a moment before answering him.

"He is under orders not to tamper with the lives of humans. Or, he _was_ under those orders. He was when I met him in 1968, but I bet a lot of things have changed since then. Cas seems to know the Winchesters quite well. At least the bloke has friends now." She paused, seeing the still perplexed look that was in her friend's gaze. She continued, "He's the second most common person I saw in my echoes, other than you. He's in about a third of all my echoes, all the ones on Earth, at least the times I saw him there. I probably missed him most of the times, with him being the quiet observer he is usually." Clara leaned back against the wall, looking across the room at the Doctor.

He leaned forward against the bed, looking at Clara from across it. The curiosity in his eyes had increased, though also had the concern.

"You do realize how cryptic you're being, don't you? All you have told me is you basically have a stalker who you just remembered is in a rather high number of your echoes, and had the ability to notice your paradoxal existence. You still haven't explained who this man really is."

"I think it would be best for him to tell you himself. I get the feeling you'll think I'm as bonkers as you think the Winchester boys are if I tell you now without any solid evidence to back up any of what I tell you. Cas happens to be your evidence that all this is real, but he also happens to be weak for the moment. That isn't just a normal stab wound if he hasn't already healed from it."

The Doctor moved forward, around the bed and facing her directly. A few feet of space separated them. She could tell she was really starting to worry him now. It was fine by her to have him a little worried. Scared would keep him safer. She needed the timelord to be a bit worried. It was better than him walking at these dangers with his usual swagger. That could get him killed. "Why can't you explain it now? I'll believe you..."

She took a step closer to him, looking up at him with a intensity in her brown eyes. The words she said came out of her in a rapid-fire fashion with the force of a machine gun. Clara couldn't stop herself. For a moment, it wasn't Clara talking. It was an echo of Clara, one of the ones who had seen too much. The one that had met Castiel in 1968. "Doctor, the pair of us are out of our comfort zone. More than you have yet to realize. If I had known Castiel was connected to all of this, I would have never let either of us get on that plane to America. Or I might have gone alone. I know you've already probably pieced together that we are in some sort of danger, but I don't think you've gotten it through your head that this isn't our normal sort of sci-fi danger with space aliens and neat planets. This is killed or be killed."

* * *

><p>The two stared at each other. The steady brown gaze of Clara seemed to cut into the Doctor's light eyes. He couldn't ever remember seeing her so... frightened. He knew her well enough that she was trying to hide her fear for his benefit, but he could see it in her eyes. <em>Now<em> he was starting to get worried. _What has she seen? _ The Doctor had a feeling he had pressured his companion too much in one day, and he had forced her to the edge of her breaking point. When the lines between his Clara and her echoes began blurring, he knew she needed to rest... no matter how curious he was about the situation. It was at this realization he backed down, his gaze softening. He gently placed an arm around her shoulders, kissing the top of the woman's head. He had half-expected her to push away from him with how wired she was, but she didn't. She simply leaned into him slightly.

"Alright. Calm down, Soufflé girl. We can do this later. You need to rest."

As she began to protest, he simply shook his head. "No. You need it. The world can wait a couple of hours while Clara Oswald sleeps." He insisted, leading her to the spare bed and letting her sit down. He gave her a stern look like a worried parent until she swung her feet up onto the bed and rested her head on the pillow.

"Do not let me sleep more than 2 hours," she told him simply, still sounding a bit annoyed at him.

"Of course," he responded as he shut the lights off. It was, of course, a lie. He was going to let her rest as long as she needed to, simple as that. He gently shut the door behind him, before walking back down the hallway the way he had come, having a lot more worry and questions in his mind than he had come in with.


	9. I Need a Drink

The Doctor moved away from the door, running a hand through his hair in a nervous manner. He knew that it was probably the best option to let his companion rest for the moment. What else could he do? He walked down the hall, only to find Dean Winchester standing directly around the corner, arms folded across his chest. The Doctor got the strange feeling that the man might've been listening in to their conversation. There was a second of silence that seemed to stretch into something much longer than a second, before Dean broke the silence.

"Do I even want to know what both of you were up to in _my_ room?"

This statement took the Doctor aback slightly. He hadn't realized the room actually belonged to anyone in particular, especially Dean, someone he was still not quite trusting of. He responded with a short ramble.

"Well, sorry about that, but I think Clara has stolen your bed for tonight. She's exhausted, if you haven't noticed. She isn't used to this..." he waved at their general surroundings, "type of thing. She's no hunter... like the pair of you. Neither of us are."

The Doctor began to walk past the elder of the Winchesters, but the hunter responded as the timelord walked away from him. A humorless smile was etched the man's face.

"Why do I get the feeling you trust that statement about as much as you trust us?"

The Doctor stopped in his tracks, turning back to face Dean. The hunter continued before the Doctor could respond. As he looked at the timelord, his green eyes seemed very tired. He suspected he was missing something rather important, but he had no idea where to start looking for the important factor he was missing. Other than, of course, the Winchesters and Castiel. A dry chuckle came from deep in Dean's chest as he spoke again.

"I wouldn't trust us either in your position. You would be stupid to. I'm not asking you to trust us either."

"Then what are you asking, exactly?"

"An enemy of my enemy... it hasn't been a statement that hasn't always been true, but I bet in this situation, it is. You want to take Crowley out, get your box back. Let us point you in the right direction so you don't get yourself and the missus killed."

The two sets of eyes met carefully, both calculating, neither trusting. About 5 feet of space separated the two men now. The Doctor responded slowly.

"That's the problem, Dean. I am not looking to _kill_ Crowley. No one is going to get killed on my watch, especially by my own hand. Yes, I am going to get my TARDIS back, but no one is going to get hurt in the process if I can help it. As for Clara, I'll make sure to keep her out of the way if there is danger. If you would like to help, you do it without _hurting_ anyone."

"If you think you will be able to get your magic box back without anyone getting in the way, you're dead wrong. I think you haven't gotten it through your DeLorean head that, first off, Crowley is already dead. He's a demon. The bible gives the watered down version of how nasty these SOBs are. The reality is that they are the souls of humans twisted into something that will laugh while it tortures you to death, or possesses your body. Why? Because it was taught to in Hell's Sunday school. Because they enjoy it. Crowley is the king of the douchebags. He will rip you to shreds given the chance, quite literally."

Dean didn't sound exactly angry at this point, though he was completely serious. There was no exaggeration or sarcasm that the Doctor could hear in the hunter's voice. When the Doctor looked at the man, his eyes were staring past the Doctor himself, not on him. It wasn't the first time that the timelord suspected that something psychologically damaging had happened to Dean and his brother. That didn't make it so the Doctor trusted them any more, however. He still primarily believed that these "demons" that the Winchesters were encountered and Crowley who he had personally encountered, were nothing more than some kind of life form that wasn't primarily from Earth that was taking advantage of humans for some reason. It was going to take more than just a brief encounter with Crowley to convince the lord of time that demons from the pits of the Judeo-Christian religion were real. As Dean mentioned that demon souls were once human, his eyes flickered upward.

"You said they used to be human, correct? Humans are corruptible, but normally there is always a way to return their humanity to them. Nothing is permanent when it comes to your species. Maybe we could convince this so called demon to rediscover its original humanity. Think of it like a factory reset, however it is probably nothing like that. If it helps you understand..."

"You really are stupid enough to go jump into a nest of demons, aren't you?" Dean interrupted, green eyes turning back onto the alien directly. A touch of frustration entered his tone. "There is no humanity left in a demon, take it from me. If you don't take my word for it, ask Sam. Let him give you his big puppy eyes and maybe you'll take his word for it. Damnit, even take Clara's word on it. She seems to have a bit of a better grasp on the situation than you do. I'm not actually sure _how_ she does."

There was a silence after this statement for a moment as the two simmered in their thoughts. Dean was the one to break the silence again.

"If you are going to go in blind after Crowley, Clara isn't coming with you. She stays here. Cas seems to trust her, so that's enough to give her the benefit of the doubt. We'll see how that works out. You, on the other hand. Apparently you've been going around a kidnapping people for centuries, at least according to the lore. There is no trust here, not in the slightest. You'll have to prove if you're worth that. That requires you not being an idiot. Got it?"

The Doctor had almost had enough with the man standing in front of him. In a flash, the man had crossed the space that separated them within a few moments. The start of a storm was kindling in the man's old eyes. Simply this alone was enough to normally send a person back a few paces. However, Dean held his ground, looking up at the Doctor coldly.

"Clara is innocent in all of this. She is my companion. A friend. However, she isn't staying with you. I'll send her back to London or somewhere. Not here. It isn't safe for her. As for the people, I don't kidnap them. Normally, they actually follow me in."

The hunter raised an eyebrow slightly, about to respond, but the Doctor didn't give him the chance. The timelord continued.

"Dean Winchester, I don't know what you have obviously suffered through. Whatever your brother has suffered through. For that, I am _sorry_. I am _so_ sorry. If I had known something like this was plaguing humanity, I would've stepped in. I would have helped. However, there is always a way out. Even out of the dark. I normally land in places and times for a reason, and I think this is it. I need to lead you and your brother out of the darkness that has seemed to have enveloped you. You see, to do that I need to you to tell me what you are fighting. I've got the whole bit about them being demons, but you need to give me more information than what you have given me. We both have our secrets, but we are going to get taken down very quickly if we don't work together on this."

Dean grimaced, responding to the Doctor. It was clear he wasn't comfortable about letting the timelord assist them, "We've done well without help from our friendly neighborhood E.T. before."

"Crowley didn't have the TARDIS then."

Dean raised an eyebrow, raising a finger up to pause the Doctor. His green eyes seemed resolute, though he wasn't meeting the old gaze of the Doctor completely.

"Alright. I'm all for exchanging general information, but you need to tell me something first. And use English. What is the... TARDIS... capable of?"

The Doctor rolled on his heels, always moving as usual. The anger in his eyes had died, though the seriousness was still there. He had together his thoughts, before explaining the TARDIS in a dumbed down version for the hunter. However, it was still quite complicated.

"The TARDIS, if the person knows how to use it... like Crowley seems to, is capable of traveling to any point in time and space. Unlike a timelord, I doubt a demon knows how to locate fixed points in time. If he happen to go back in time and he alters one of these fixed points. _Boom._ All of time and space start happening at once. We would have a mess on our hands involving all of creation falling to shreds, and there isn't another Pandorica laying around for a Big Bang Three. If he doesn't hit a fixed point, then he still can go backwards or forwards in time and still make the outcomes of things different. Crowley could have already changed something, but we haven't noticed because we were the things that got changed. He can also travel to other planets. A lot of creatures don't like Earth, and it wouldn't take him long to raise an army against the planet with me out of the way. Not to mention it is a massive energy source. It has the strength of a dying star at its core. However, it can be misused." The Doctor paused.

"If the TARDIS blows up, it wouldn't just take the planet. It will take the entire universe along with it."

* * *

><p>Dean stared at the Doctor blankly for a second after he said this, mouth slightly ajar. Whatever he had been expecting, it hadn't been that. He only actually understood half of what the Doctor had said, but it was enough to get a general idea. If Crowley could time travel with ease, there was a hell of a lot of things that the King of Hell could screw up for them. He didn't even want to think about all of them. Hell, he could even yank Lucifer and Michael back out of the pit if he liked. He noted that it was probably his turn to spill some details. But first...<p>

"I need a drink."

The elder Winchester walked around the Doctor, back toward the main room. He didn't even need to look back, as he knew the Doctor was following behind him. He was unsurprised when he found his brother sitting at the wooden table in the center of the room, looking as sickly as ever. Sam looked up as the two entered the room. He must've noticed the look on Dean's face, because he got back to his feet immediately. The tall man stumbled slightly on his shaky legs, leaning awkwardly against the table. Now that they were back on the ground in their proper country, his Trial-induced illness seemed to have returned. They exchanged a glance as Dean grabbed the bottle of liquor from the table, not hesitating in pouring a bit into a glass cup. He looked back at the Doctor, taking a swig before speaking. It was first directed at his sickened brother.

"Tell him what you told me. Then we'll explain, got it?"

"We'll explain what-?"

"Shut up, Sammy. You'll make me change my mind."

The two brothers went silent as the Doctor explained the TARDIS over again. Sam's were slightly wider by the time he had finished. There was a short silence after this, only broken by Dean pouring himself another drink. The Doctor eyed him doubtfully for a moment, before he looked over at Sam as he spoke. He noticed that the timelord's eyes softened when he glanced over at Sam, probably feeling bad for him or something. Dean actually couldn't blame him this time, as Sam looked as if he was about to fall over again. It was get another reminder that they needed to figure out what the third trial was. Soon. Of course, Crowley had the other half of the demon tablet too, possibly bother halves. Kevin had disappeared off the face of the planet, after all.

"So basically Crowley has, not only at least half of the demon tablet and the angel tablet, but also a spaceship with ability to time travel. The list of things he could have done with that..." Sam's voice died off, as he began coughing. Dean flashed him a worried look, but his brother waved a hand to show he was fine. He wasn't fine, but Dean's attention had been diverted away from his brother when another voice inquired something from behind him.

"He could raise hell."

He hadn't heard Cas enter the room, but the angel was now standing a few feet behind him. Dean set down his glass. The blood was gone from his trench coat, probably from some angelic stain remover or something. He looked better than he had, but it was clear that he was in pain. All eyes turned to him. Dean walked over, meeting the angel's gaze before leading the angel to a chair.

"You were supposed to be resting," Dean grumbled as he returned to his spot, picking up the glass again. His eyes flickered between Castiel and Sam, a touch of worry softening his gaze. The two people he was currently depending on in this situation were out of commission. It was just another reason Dean wasn't at all happy with this whole situation right now.

"I think you are well aware that I do not sleep."

"You still shouldn't be moving around too much this soon...-"

"I have healed enough to be capable of doing more than simply resting." The angel's eyes flitted to the Doctor, staring at him steadily. There was something that registered in his gaze, as if he recognized him. The Doctor stared back, curiosity already starting to resurface in his light eyes. Cas spoke to Dean, though he didn't take his eyes off the alien in the room.

"Besides, there are more important things that seem to be going on at the moment."

"I explained what the TARDIS is capable of, I think it is about time the three of you explain what is going on. What is Crowley planning to do with it? What-" The Doctor was interrupted, strangely enough, by Castiel. The angel's eyes had widened slightly in another rare show of emotion, before he had spoken. His voice had turned urgent.

"_Crowley_ has the TARDIS? How long has he had the machine?"

Everyone was still staring at Castiel. The Winchesters were looking at him as if he had just grown another head at this point, and the curiosity simply grew in the timelord's old eyes.

"Yes, he does. He's had it for about a day now. The better question seems to be how do you know what the TARDIS is? Also, how do you know Clara? _Who are you?_"

You could've heard a pen drop in the room as these three questions were asked. Dean sat his glass down, leaning forward slightly to hear the angel's response.

"I'm an angel of the Lord."

This simple statement had the Doctor floored. His mouth hung open in shock for a second, before he looked between the two Winchesters. It seemed he was looking for one of them to mirror his shock, but both Dean and Sam looked unaffected. Dean even had a slight smirk touching his face at the Doctor's reaction to this news. Sam was staring forward, as if lost in thought.

"That's not possible."

"I assure you it is."

"Prove it, then."

The remark was childish in nature, though it reflected the childlike curiosity that was bubbling within the timelord. There was no malicious purpose behind it. He just wanted to know. He _needed_ to know. It was this reason Dean didn't punch the absurd man in his chin the moment he suggested it. He looked over at Castiel as the angel got back to his feet. He heard a slightly high-pitched buzzing as the air around Cas seemed to glow. It was a sound he hadn't heard in a while, but definitely recognized.

"Back up!"

The warning had come from Dean, and not a soul questioned it. Sam stumbled back and leaned against a bookcase, and the Doctor took a step back a few paces himself. The lights above them flickered, seemingly dim in comparison to the pure holy light that radiated off of Cas. An outline of two enormous wings were outlined in the shadows behind the man in a trench coat. The man's blue eyes seemed to glow slightly as well. As quickly as this took to happen, it ended. The light faded around Castiel, and his eyes faded back to their shocking blue. His hand moved to the table to support himself before he sat back down in the wooden chair. Castiel was the first to speak. His voice was rough, tired. However, there was an unmistakable intensity behind his words.

"Clara has lived numerous lives on Earth. I noticed. How could I not? The job of my former garrison was to watch over humanity. As you know, I was one of the few who actually _cared_ for them as well. It was this which lead me to noticing the paradox that was Clara _Oswin_ Oswald. When a human dies normally, a reaper comes and takes their soul. The soul is taken to Heaven or Hell, depending on a range of circumstances. Instead, whenever Clara died, her soul disappeared into the void. No reaper was alerted to collect her; it was like she never died at all... like she had never existed. A bit of time would pass, and she would appear again, blissfully unaware of the fact she had already lived and died before. Then as a blue box with an almost angelic energy appeared with you inside, each time it was only a matter of time until she sacrificed herself again for you. I saw her many times throughout the course of my lifespan, hundreds of times. There are probably thousands of other times I didn't notice, and probably another few times Naomi erased from my mind. Does that answer your question, Doctor?"

Dean stared at Castiel in a mild state of shock, glass cup of alcohol half-way to his lips. In honesty, the Winchester had sort of just assumed the angel had been a complete angelic douchebag like the rest of his buddies in the days before they had met them. When he had met Cas the first time, he had been. Now, it made sense that the angel might have a past. Naomi might have re-brainwashed him before the angel had been sent down from Heaven to meet the Winchester brothers. He glanced over at his brother, who looked as surprised as he did.

The Doctor was the first to speak. He looked a bit at a loss for words at first, as his mouth opened and closed twice before words actually came out.

"I suppose that answers that question. As for the next point, what is Crowley planning to do?"

No one had an answer to this.


	10. A Bit Risky

Clara woke up to a quiet shuffling next to the bed, followed by a loud thump. In actuality, she was rather grateful for being woken up. She was breathing heavily, her heart thumping like a caged bird in her chest. _Did I have a nightmare?_ The woman knew she had, but she couldn't remember a single detail from it at all. The only thing she was sure of was it hadn't been pleasant. She glanced around, taking a moment to remember where in the world she was exactly. As the lights flickered on, the day she had yesterday came flooding back. The man who was standing at the light switch was Dean. He had an eyebrow raised at her. She couldn't tell if it was raised in amusement or some other emotion.

"You happened to pass out on my bed, of all places, so I seem to be required to sneak around my own room to get to my things. I was not planning to trip over your bag. What's in that bag, anyways? Bricks?"

Dean waved a hand in the general the bag, which was basically just sitting in the middle of the room. She couldn't remember who exactly had left it there, but she now that she thought about it, wasn't a logical place for it. She watched as he went back to what he was doing, which was walking over to a cabinet to grab some ammo, of all things. Clara hopped back out of the bed, glancing at the hunter.

"Sorry, I didn't know...-"

"Stop being so... British. There's no need to apologize. You can sleep in my bed anytime."

Now she placed what the raised eyebrow was for. It was flirtatious. It was then a flush of color touched her cheeks. She decided to just ignore that comment completely, deciding to ask a better question. She wasn't going to deal with the fact she was outnumbered in this building by pretty, young men for now.

"Why are you getting bullets? Are you running off to somewhere?" She noted that Dean didn't meet her gaze when he spoke, which was unusual since he was normally the type to make eye contact. It gave her a feeling that something was definitely not quite right.

"We got a lead on where the guy who wrote the angel tablets might be. If we can find him, he'll be able to tell us what the last demon trial is. We got the information from a file Kevin sent us. Apparently if the little dude didn't update it every week, the information he had already found about the tablets would get sent to us. The Scribe of God is hiding in an Indian hotel. At least, according to the translation that Sammy and the Doc pulled together. It's the best lead we've got on anything, so we're heading out."

Clara paused, tilting her head. It sounded like something like that would've taken more time to do than just 2 hours...

"Dean, how long have I been sleeping?"

"Just a little over 18 hours, I think."

"Someone should have woken me up!"

"You needed the sleep, sweetheart. Everyone sort of agreed that you needed the rest."

She stepped forward, looking up at the man in a heated way. Clara couldn't help but feel a bit annoyed. Had the Doctor somehow already convinced everyone that she was nothing more than a girl who needed to be protected? It wasn't unlike him. Either way, she remembered something she had told Dean earlier. Without warning, the brunette woman slapped Dean Winchester across the face. Hard.

The man's eyes widened in surprise. Whatever the reaction he had expected to that statement, it hadn't been that. His hand went to his cheek, touching the skin gingerly.

"What was that for!?"

"You called be sweetheart again, dear. You had that one coming."

She glanced in a mirror and straightened her brown hair slightly, before walking toward the door. She turned to look back at him as she crossed through the doorway.

"And for the record, Dean Winchester... I'm not what you would consider just a pretty face. You got that? I'm a bit more than that. I'm not just here so you can flirt at me and be the convenient damsel in distress."

With that, she stalked down the hallway, back toward the way she remember to be the direction of main room.

* * *

><p>Dean watched the brunette marched out of the room, gently touching his jaw as he stared at the doorway she had exited from. A smirk was grown on his face. He responded back, voice a bit quieter.<p>

"Never said you were."

The woman was already gone, so she wouldn't hear that comment. That was good. Clara definitely didn't need anything to affirm her ego. The hunter shifted through the cabinets, picking up a shotgun and glancing at it and debating whether to bring it. With a pause, he put it back carefully. His thoughts were still on Clara.

"Piece of work, that one..."

He had a feeling that she wasn't going to take it well when she discovered the Doctor was going to try to prevent her from going.

* * *

><p>Clara walked in to find an interesting scene going on in the room lined with books. The Doctor seemed to be in the process of trying to convince Sam to eat something. By convincing, Clara meant holding a bowl of soup underneath Sam's nose while he was trying to look over it at some papers. However, his plan seemed to not be working. The Doctor only seemed to be agitating the man. Clara was reminded of a mother hen by the was the timelord was hovering over the younger of the Winchesters.<p>

"Sam, you need to eat something. Eating something while you are sick _will_ help. That's how the human body works. Well, there was this one case where this woman didn't have the biological need to eat, but that is 400 years in the future so it hasn't occurred yet. Officially, at this point in time, all humans need to eat to live, including you. So _eat_. Apparently Dean made this soup, so it should be edible. I wouldn't expect him to be the type to be a good cook but apparently he is."

"The only thing that is going to help me is figuring out what the 3rd trial is and completing it. We've been over this. Eight times to be exact."

"Yes, we have. But having to participate in the trials doesn't mean that you magically don't need to eat now. In reality, it you should be eating more, not less. You are changing at an atomic level, which means you need to have something keeping you together. That something is food, Sam. See, even Dean will agree with me, and you know something is true if we actually manage to agree on something. Right Dean?"

He turned around to face Clara, and looked at her in surprise. He set down the bowl of soup in front of Sam, on top of the papers. Sam casually moved the papers out from under the bowl automatically, and he continued to read with only a short glance at Clara.

"You're not Dean."

"Great observation, Sherlock."

The Doctor opened his mouth, and closed it again, unsure of how to respond to that. He looked at her before mumbling. She had managed to stop his train of thought.

"Oh, shut up."

The timelord looked back at Sam, then at Clara. He didn't notice the small smirk of amusement flitting across his companion's face.

"Well, don't you agree with me that he should be eating Clara? He should. Also, where's Dean? Did he wake you up?"

Clara looked over at Sam sympathetically, before agreeing. The man looked downright sickly. Dark circles were under the man's eyes like bruises, and he was as pale as death. Her accent thickened slightly, like it did when she was taking to her students.

"Yeah, actually. Love, you should eat somethin'."

She walked over to him, feeling the man's forehead like she did when one of her students was sick. The man was burning to the touch. It was enough to make her worry. She understood now why the Doctor had been trying so hard to get him to eat. When he looked at her questioningly, raising an eyebrow at her. He was giving her an odd look, though he didn't say anything. Like both of the Winchesters, Sam more so than Dean, he was unused to anyone actually acting in a motherly fashion like Clara did quite often. She was a nanny and a teacher; it was sort of hard-wired into her DNA to be motherly. Her hands moved to her hips.

"Don't make me use my teacher voice, Sam Winchester. You've got to eat something."

Sam seemed to realize he wasn't going to get out of this one, so he rather reluctantly picked up the spoon next to the bowl. He said one thing before began eating, the comment directed at Clara.

"You are very bossy."

"Someone has to keep Chin Boy in line."

The Doctor glanced over at Clara, frowning. He touched his chin self-consciously, half-heartedly responding,

"My chin isn't that big."

This discussion came to a quick end as Dean walked up behind Clara, glancing over the brunette woman's head at his brother, then to Clara.

"Oh, so you eat when she asks, but you don't when I tell you to?"

Sam waved in the general direction of Clara, picking at the soup. His long brown hair was covering part of his face as he spoke.

"I'm pretty sure she is much more terrifying than you are, Dean. However, you both are short and bossy." Sam shrugged, glancing between the two of them without another word. A short silence fell between them after this comment, and Clara took a moment to glance around the room. She had an urge to go look at the books surrounding them, knowing it might reconnect her with some of her echoes, but she had a feeling now wasn't the time. Clara looked back over at them, and Dean hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.

"Come on, let's not just sit around here all day. Sam, take the bowl of soup and get your bag," he glanced over at the Doctor, "Doc, I'm not sure if you have anything to bring. Find a way to be useful." A silence fell as he glanced over at Clara. She had a feeling she wasn't going to like the next sentence spoken. Dean's green eyes flickered between the Doctor and his companion. The Doctor seemed to understand.

"Clara, you should stay here."

The words were spoken by the Doctor, not Dean. Immediately she whirled around face him, the embers of a fire lighting in her brown eyes.

"What? Are you serious? I know more about this sort of stuff than you do, Doctor. A _lot_ more, actually. There are not many situation where I can say that. Someone needs to watch your back, and these two hunters will be too busy watching their own backs to add yours to the equation. You don't know enough about this to know how to stay safe. These aren't the kind of things you can wave a screwdriver at and say a couple of clever comments and you win. If you aren't prepared to kill, you will get yourself killed. Beyond regeneration killed."

"You don't know anything about this, Clara. Maybe your echoes do, but you don't."

"I am my echoes, Doctor."

There was a deafening silence that filled the room as the Doctor and Clara stared at each other. Dean was watching it like a soap opera was unfolding, a liquor bottle in his hand. He seemed to have abandoned just using the glass, taking a swig from the bottle. Sam was the first to speak up, abandoning his soup for a moment.

"This might be a stupid question, but what is up with the whole thing about Clara's... you said echoes, right?"

The Doctor seemed relieved for a quick distraction from his companion, answering quickly.

"It's a long story. The short version is Clara ended up jumping into my time stream to save my life, in turn splitting her soul into thousands of pieces that spread themselves across my entire time line. Different versions of her called _echoes_ live and die throughout my timeline, saving me. A bit risky...-"

* * *

><p>"A bit risky?!" Sam remarked indignantly, looking more than a bit shocked. Dean's eyebrows had shot up immediately as the Doctor had spoken. <em>Into a thousand pieces...<em> He looked between the Doctor and Clara now. Sam had his soul torn apart when he had been in the pit with Michael and Lucifer; it wasn't the kind of thing he would categorize as _a bit _risky. More like worse than death. Endless torture came to mind. He looked at Clara, a complete new respect for the brunette in his eyes. Also real concern.

"How are you still sane?"

Clara seemed a bit startled by the question, but Sam had already moved on. His gaze had switched over to the Doctor. The tall man had gotten to his feet on shaky legs, though he looked like he still might decide to tackle the timelord, and there wasn't a question of who would win that fight. He looked downright scary, enough that Clara took a step back away from him and a bit behind Dean.

"Don't you know how... how _naïve_ you sound? Getting your soul torn apart isn't something you just walk away from. It isn't something you just blow off as a mild mishap. A soul doesn't heal like a cut or a broken wrist. It doesn't work like that. When a soul is broken apart, it doesn't glue itself back together." It was then Dean set a hand on his brother's shoulder, pulling him away from the Doctor.

"Sammy, cool down. Head to the Impala." He paused, before adding upon feeling the heat waves coming from his brother, "Literally and figuratively."

As the Doctor moved to speak, Dean pointed a finger at him.

"I didn't say he was wrong. You can shut the hell up."

After a second, Sam shrugged off Dean's hand from his shoulder, before walking toward the door. He picked up his duffel bag as he walked toward the exit. He didn't even spare a glance back at the others.

* * *

><p>Clara looked in between the Doctor and Dean, slightly surprised that the Doctor had, in fact, quieted himself down. He was looking at her silently, frowning. She sort of wished Sam hadn't had an outburst, because now it simply meant that he was going to worry over her even more now. Not that the worry might be well-placed, she just didn't like being the source of his worry. Lord knows the timelord had enough on his mind without having her as an extra worry.<p>

As she thought about this, she saw Dean turn to face her. Without another word, he gently took her by the arm, pulling her aside. She looked at him questioningly, unsure of his motives.

"What?"

He sighed, his arms folding across his chest. He met her gaze steadily. His voice was lowered so the Doctor wouldn't overhear.

"Clara, you need to stay here."

"_What_?"

"Would you mind letting me finish?"

He raised an eyebrow at her, and she reluctantly went quiet.

"Don't get me wrong, I trust you a helluva lot more than I trust Doc over there, but someone needs to hang around and keep an eye on Cas. He has a tendency to wander off, and the guy still is hurt pretty bad. You might be able to keep him pinned down in the bunker until we get back. Besides, you seem to actually have a bit of catching up to do. Not to mention it's always good for someone to have a working brain at home base, just in case."

"Oh..."

Clara hadn't been expecting that reason. She could tell it was sincere, simply from the look Dean was giving her. She glanced over at the Doctor, then to the door Sam had exited from with a raised eyebrow.

"Promise me this. Make sure the Doctor doesn't get himself killed. Knock him out or handcuff him if you have too, just don't let him run in blind and get himself killed."

"Sometimes living through it might just be the way to get it through his thick head."

"Dean, I'm serious."

"Don't worry yourself, swee-... Clara. I won't let him get too banged up. As long as he doesn't do anything incredibly stupid, we should be fine."

"I'm worried he'll to just that."

The two stared at each other for a moment, a silent understanding passing between them. Clara watched as Dean walked back to the Doctor, staying where she was. The brunette woman winked at the Doctor when he glanced over at her. He looked at her, confused.

"You're staying?"

"Don't push your luck, Doctor. I have my reasons. You stay safe. Both of you."

She watched as the two left, before she walked back toward the hallway to go looking for Castiel.


	11. You're Not Getting a Vote

Finding an angel of the Lord in a bunker was much harder than it initially sounded. First, she had underestimated the size of the building. She hadn't thought it was too much bigger than what she came across when she had arrived, but she was quite mistaken. The bunker was _huge._ She wandered up the hallways in an aimless manner for a bit, trying to get a feel of the building before she began searching rooms. The companion was reminded vaguely of a less fanciful version of the TARDIS.

By being less fanciful, she meant that each room had a purpose. She opened one door to find an armory of weapons. Guns, swords, battle axes, maces, nunchucks. There didn't seem to be anything that they _didn't_ have when regarding weapons._ The Doctor would hate this. Note to self: never let him in here._ She noted that there was a crossbow in the back, and a few other less conventional weapons. They were definitely ready for anything that was for sure. She opened another door and found a large supple of rationed food. A set of double doors lead to a garage. Another revealed what she recognized things used for protection against the supernatural. Bottles with water and a cross in them, liquids of different colors, many of them dark red. She wasn't sure if she should be grossed out because of this or not, but her stomach did a summersault anyways. Bags of salt lined the walls haphazardly. She came to the realization that she actually knew what some of this stuff was, though she didn't really want to stay around long enough for one of her echoes to give her the memories. _An echo of mine must've been a hunter._ She wasn't quite sure if she wanted to know all of the details as of yet.

She tried a few doors only to find them locked. Clara wasn't curious enough about what lay behind them to start picking the lock with a hairpin or something, but she did wish she had the Doctor's sonic screwdriver at times. It would be rather useless if Cas had locked himself in a room somewhere. She was just starting to think the angel might've flown the coop as she checked yet another bedroom, when a deep voice behind her nearly made her have a heart attack.

"Clara..."

She whirled around to find the angel she had been looking for standing right behind her. As he always was. With his trench coat and bright blue eyes. There was that slight look of bewilderment in his eyes as he looked at her, a look she had seen on his face almost as much as the usual, emotionlessness that dominated his expression normally. There was also a question those eyes, which he soon formulated into words. He sounded hesitant.

"You do fully remember me this time... correct? Normally each time you reappear you don't seem to remember...-"

He was interrupted quite promptly when Clara ran at him and threw her arms around the man, giving him a hug. Cas immediately froze, the bewildered expression becoming even more confused.

"I remember you, Cas. How could I not? A large majority of it, at least," she paused, before adding, "and this is the part where you hug me back, dear."

"I-... _Clara_, umm, I don't normally... well... people don't usually _hug_ me," he stuttered weakly. Even so, she felt the angel return the hug lightly with a touch of awkwardness.

"You're not getting a vote."

"Actually, you are sort of hurting me."

Clara's eyes widened slightly, remembering that the angel had just recently gotten injured with a jolt. She loosened her grip on him, taking a step back.

"Whoops, sorry. I didn't hurt you or something...-"

"It's fine, Clara. I'm fine."

Clara looked at him for a moment, studying him. She hadn't ever had an experience like this before. The way Castiel had gotten himself involved in a majority of her echoes, it was a unique thing. Only the angel of the lord was capable of something like that. Clara had only just officially met the angel in _this_ lifetime a couple of days ago. However, both of them had known each other over the course of thousands of years.

While she looked at him for a moment, she realized with a touch of concern, out of all the times she had seen him... he seemed much older now than the times he had seen her in the past. Over the course of the times she had seen him through the echoes, he had never changed. He was always constant. With his trench coat and bright blue eyes. Despite the fact he was an immortal being, she never saw any difference in his experience level. The other angels ran a strict government in the clouds. However, the angel seemed different now. Physically, he didn't look older, but just the way Cas carried himself, the way he acted, she knew he had aged on the inside. _The Winchesters pulled him out of the clouds. _The woman's lips quirked up into a small, sad smile.

"We need to catch up on a lot of stuff. The last place I ever would expect to find you is working alongside two hunters. The last time I saw you..."

"-…You were dying."

"Well, there was that. I was thinking more about the last time we actually spoke. Not including the times you just sort of watched like a stalker. The last time I remember you lurking to the side of one of my echoes, it was like 1999, correct?"

Clara got a small nod from Castiel in response to this. He was being rather quiet, which she didn't find too unusual for him. In all honesty, he seemed to have developed better communication skills since the last time she had seen him. He was talking a whole lot more than he had to her echoes back in the day.

"But the last and only time we _really _talked was, as we both know…"

"1968."

The last word was stated in unison by both Clara and Castiel. Clara automatically folded her arms over her chest, as if fighting an invisible chill. The date wasn't exactly pleasant in her mind, actually quite far from it. It was the reason she had gotten so spooked when she discovered what they were heading into. It had been the experience that had taught her the most about the worlds of Heaven and Hell, but gaining new information came hand-in-hand with terror. Clara looked up at the angel as he spoke.

"If it is any reassurance, the demon you saw, he has been dead for several years now. The Winchesters were his original target, but they took care of him."

Clara released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding as she repeated what Castiel said for confirmation. She walked over to the bed, sitting on the edge of the mattress. She ran a hand through her brown hair, looking up at him.

"_Azazel_ is dead, then? The Winchesters killed him? Well, that is reassuring actually. Normally when you say reassuring you say something like the sky is falling. I know I won't need to worry about the Doctor running into a battle like an idiot and expect him to pause when he won't."

Castiel moved over to Clara, looking at her for a moment before sitting beside her.

"Azazel might be dead, but there are still a lot of other forces that are out in the world that want to destroy humanity. Since we last met, the lines between the angels and demons have blurred even farther, as both sides want to take the Earth for themselves. Heaven has become complete anarchy and Hell is... well... hell."

Clara raised an eyebrow at him, smirking slightly. If she was ever seeking emotional support of any kind, she knew Cas wasn't exactly the best option to go to unless you understood his strangeness. The teacher nudged the angel on the shoulder in a light-hearted manner.

"Nevermind on the reassurance bit of this conversation. It seriously isn't you field. I think a better thing to discuss is the explanation I have on how I have lived and died so many times."

She noted as the angel sat up a little straighter, reminding Clara a bit of a excited puppy momentarily. This had been the moment Castiel had been waiting for a long time. Answers.

"How?"

"How familiar are you, Cas, with the inner workings of time?"

"Angels can travel backwards or forwards in time, however without backing from Heaven, it is almost impossible. Even when I had Heaven backing me, time travel is very hard to do. Now, it would be probably close to impossible for me to do."

"I am aware of that, but the answer to your question... involves a lot of strange time stuff."

"Explain. We have until Sam, Dean, and the Doctor return... which might take a rather long while."

Clara paused, gathering her thoughts before she began her story. As she spoke, she watched Castiel, as if trying to judge his reaction on how insane he thought her story was. It was, admittedly, a bit out there. Even still, with the craziness that followed Cas around, she doubted she could tell him anything stranger than the angel had seen throughout his long life.

"First, explaining the Doctor might be the best option. He's a timelord. Also known as an alien. He comes from the planet Gallifrey and he has two hearts instead of one. Instead of dying, he regenerates and changes his appearance. The thing about Gallifrey, it is a lot more advanced than Earth is. Even more advanced than the angels. What you can do with magic, they can do with science. That explains the TARDIS. Time and Relative Dimensions In Space. It is a time machine with the capabilities to go anywhere in time and space within seconds. It's a bit more than a machine, though. It's sort of... alive. I've had full conversations with her at times."

She paused, as if waiting for Castiel to comment. When he didn't say anything, she continued, voice speeding up a bit.

"Those are only the basics, really. The important bit is that the Doctor takes companions. Like me. He showed up on my door dressed as a monk and we saved the world from killer Wi-Fi, and we have been traveling ever since."

Castiel broke in, "You weren't traveling with him when I saw you. He barely even noticed you. I only saw him notice you once, and that was when he materialized around you after you fell from the sky."

"I'm getting to that. It was when we went to Trenzalore, a barren planet, that everything changed. The Doctor was never supposed to go there, as that was the location of his grave, but we forced to by this thing called the Great Intelligence. We went, and instead of a grave, it was an exposed bit of the Doctor's timeline. The way he explained it was sort of like this. Time travel is damage. It leaves cuts and tears in time. What we were looking at was the scar tissue of his travels through the universe. Well, the Great Intelligence, wanting revenge, went in and began to corrupt the Doctor's timeline, during all of his victories into defeats. The amount of times the Doctor has saved the universe, the whole of reality was falling apart along with the Doctor. At the same time, the Great Intelligence destroyed itself, but it had gotten what it wanted. Destruction and revenge."

"You had to stop it."

Clara nodded, looking down. She felt like she was being properly honest about how painful the experience was for the first time, partly because she trusted Cas more than anyone. Maybe even more than the Doctor. He had been the one who had noticed her through all the times she had died. The Doctor, on the other hand, hadn't. He had, in a way, been there for her when she had been more lost than ever.

"I jumped in to reverse the damage the Great Intelligence had done. It... it split me... my soul, into a million different pieces, spread throughout the Doctor's entire timeline. All living and dying just to save him. Echoes of me. I'm the real Clara."

Castiel was looking at her, eyes slightly wider and sadder than usual. He understood.

"Do you remember all of them?"

"I remember them when something pops up to remind me of them. Like you. I didn't remember you or any of this until I saw you and heard you name. I met the Winchesters, and I thought it sounded vaguely familiar, and I didn't have trouble believing them. It was when I saw you that it all fell into place."

There was silence for a moment as Castiel processed the information, making sense of it and piecing it together with the things he didn't know. Clara could almost see the gears working in the angel's head. He looked down at her before responding.

"How is your soul still intact? Sam had his soul ripped to shreds, and he went insane. He didn't sleep for so long, that alone nearly killed him. I had to transfer the insanity into myself to keep him alive. The insanity disappeared upon entering Purgatory, but it was still more than dangerous."

Clara's eyes widened slightly, murmuring to herself, "Oh, that's why Sam got so worked up. He'd gotten his soul ripped apart too..."

"You still haven't answered my question."

Clara fiddled with a strand of her hair, thinking back. The answer was she wasn't sure. She knew the Doctor had somehow taken care of it, but she had no idea _how_ exactly he had taken care of it. With the way Castiel and Sam were talking about it, it wasn't something you just walked away from without any damage. She slowly shook her head.

"I haven't got a clue, Cas. I don't remember. Like I said, there's a lot of the whole thing I don't fully remember until I notice something that puts it into place. I think we shouldn't worry about it. I'm fine now, aren't I?" She smiled at him brightly, before she got to her feet. Reluctantly, he got to his feet as well.

"Now, remember I said I long time ago that I owe you a nice British cuppa tea and a soufflé. I think it's time I live up to that deal." She began walking out of the room, and Castiel followed after her. She moved in the direction she thought was the kitchen. She heard Castiel speak behind her.

"What is a cuppa, exactly?"

"_Cup of tea, _Castiel."

There was a short pause, before she heard the angel speak up again.

"Angels don't need to eat.. or drink."

"Remember I mentioned you not getting a vote?"


	12. Looking Back: Part One

_"They call it the legend of the blue box."  
>"Oh... Well, never been in here before. Not one for churches. Too cold."<br>__"This was the site of a convent back in the 1300s. It's said a demon fell from the sky. Then a man appeared. A man in a blue box. They called him the sainted physician. He smote the demon then disappeared. "  
><em>_"Well, that's a bit of a coincidence."  
><em>_"It's said there's no such thing as coincidence. Who knows? Perhaps he's coming back..."  
>Wilfred Mott and the Woman in "The End of Time"<em>

**January 12, 1343 AD.**

There was a long time between the centuries he saw the Impossible Girl for the first time and the time he encountered her in the 12th century. Their paths simply weren't fated to cross. Within in that time, the angel had almost forgotten about the mysterious girl he had seen so many years ago. Almost. At times, when he was assigned a particularly boring task by the garrison, the angel's concentration faltered slightly. This was the only kind of relaxation Castiel would have, as angels don't get breaks. Rare did this happen, and even rarer still did a woman he had seen once in the 1st century cross his mind.

One such occasion was as Castiel was watching over a convent in London, England.

It was a snowy day in the centre of London, and in reality, not a soul had expected the sudden cold. It had been getting increasingly warmer over the course of the last week, but the warm streak was soon brought to a shuttering halt as the sky had turned to the color of earl grey tea. A chill touched the air, and people took out the coats that they had already stuffed in the closet optimistically. The ground itself hadn't even adapted to the sudden cold yet. As fresh snowflakes it the earth, they melted immediately upon impact.

The reason his mind was wandering so much was because, generally, there was never too much of a problem with convents. Sure, there were some exceptions when they started to turn dark, but it was getting increasingly scarcer as Christianity became the more significant of religions, and as pagan religions began to fade into extinction. The natural order stayed balanced.

Besides, normally Castiel was directed to be where the action wasn't, as he, even though he himself wasn't aware of the fact, was a loose cannon. He was a powerful angel, but they didn't want him to start developing feelings. Again. Emotions were doorways into doubt.

If the angels had knowledge of the events that were about to unfold inside the convent, however, they probably would've sent for reinforcements.

Castiel was broken out of his thoughts by the sound of an explosion, alarmingly close to the convent. Immediately, Castiel flew to the outside of the convent to investigate. About 30 yards from the church itself, there was a crater. If that wasn't strange enough, Castiel sensed that there was a living being at the heart of the crater.

He watched for a moment, before moving closer to the location of the disturbance. His presence went unnoticed by the humans, as he was only a celestial wavelength at the time. Something was crawling out of it, something Castiel hadn't seen before. Had it fallen from the sky?

A being covered from head to foot in metal pulled itself out of the crater it had made for itself. It looked rather beaten up, but that made it look no less menacing. Castiel could hear screams echoing from behind him from the sisterhood of nuns, who had gathered in the doorway of the church to see what the source of the sound had been. He heard the muffled sounds of their prayers, for God to protect them from the demon.

_That's no demon._

He had seen demons before, and had smote all of the ones he had met. They were twisted and deformed souls that crawled out of hell every once in a while to cause havoc. This was something new. It had no trace of a soul. It was cold. Metal. Which was impossible as nothing was ever supposed to be new. Even so, he couldn't just watch and do nothing. This was definitely not in the treasured natural order of things. Just as he materialized in human form to the side of what was going on with a flash of bright light, his trench coat fluttering around his heels, a voice cut through the air. At first he thought it was directed at him, but he was quite mistaken.

"Gosh, you had a rough landing didn't you? Sorry about that. However, in all fairness, you were a bit close to the railing of the spaceship whilst you were trying to capture us. Would you like a jelly baby?"

The speaker of the words was a man with a mass of curly brown hair and a toothy grin. The mult-colored scarf that was around his neck was so long that it pooled at his feet. A blonde woman next to him was wearing a fedora that was slightly too big for her. He was holding out a bag of what looked like multi-colored sweets to the metal creature.

It wasn't this that caught the angel's attention, however. It was the blue police box that was sitting behind the location of the man. The same blue police box he had seen all those years ago at Pompeii. Immediately he felt the same strange magnetism that pulled the angel toward the box in the first place a long time ago. A strange sensation flowed through his body as he stared at the blue box. He sensed something about it, like a magnetic pull tugging at his grace. Only once before had he felt this sensation. It gave off the same kind of energy Heaven itself did, except it wasn't quite the same. Exotic. Foreign. Something was just slightly... _off_ about the box. He had no time to dwell on this, however, as a scene was still unfolding in front of church.

"You will be deleted."

"I don't think he wants candy, Doctor."

Despite the fact that the man was seemingly offering the creature some sort of peace offering, it raised its hand up, a motion similar to the one an angel would do when smiting something from a short distance. Before Castiel, the scarf man, or anyone really could respond, the metal thing shot a blast at the scarf man.

It didn't hit the correct target however.

One of the nuns had broken from the group, running out in front of the Doctor, faster than what Cas thought a human even could move. As the metal thing shot, it made contact with the woman, not the scarf-wearing man. The angel got a glimpse of her face as she fell to the ground, and he froze.

_"That isn't possible."_

The thought actually translated to him speaking it out loud, he was caught by such surprise. As he watched the woman collapse to the ground, memories of Pompeii and fire raining down upon a doomed city touched his mind. Within that doomed city, there had been a strange blue box and another seemingly insane man with an assistant. Not to mention, the exact same brown-haired woman who had also died saving a man and his blue box. She had died in the 1st century, and now she was here. _How is that logical?_

He didn't even have time to think about it too much further. He already felt her heart beginning to slow as he stood and watched. An internal struggle raged within him, his angelic training telling him not to get involved vs. his strong curiosity. This caused him to become incapable of doing anything except stare.

The man wearing a scarf didn't even seem to break step as the woman who saved him fell in front of him. It was almost like something was stopping him from really seeing her. The blonde woman next to him did see the woman however. Her mouth opened in shock; however she didn't have time to dwell on it, as the Doctor was already pulling her away. Castiel heard a vague comment about leading the "cyberman" away from the nunnery, leaving the body of the mystery woman behind.

It was at that moment the curiosity won over again. The angel disappeared, reappearing over the woman and kneeling beside her. His trench coat lay spread out behind him. From what he could tell, his appearance had stopped any of the nuns to come over and help this woman. He stared at the growing crowd on nuns for a moment, his blue eyes reflecting the firelight of the torches. He then looked at Clara, before he reached down, pressing a hand to her forehead to heal her. Something was different this time. Normally, preforming a small miracle like healing a human would be no problem. With this particular case, however, he couldn't. Whatever the metal creature had done to her, it was like it had burned her from the inside out... except worse. All Castiel could do was ease her passing. The angel momentarily felt as if something was very heavy in his chest. A mix of guilt and regret, but the angel didn't have any idea that was the name for what he was feeling. The angel slowly moved his hand from Clara, his blue eyes closing.

Castiel was a bit startled when a hand came up from next to him, grabbing his forearm. The angel's blue eyes opened again, looking at her carefully. He had already assumed that the woman had already spoken her last, and he was just waiting for her heart to slow to a stop. However, her brown eyes were open and staring at him. She spoke in nothing more than a whisper. She said seven words.

"Run you clever boy and remember me."

The grip of the woman's hand loosened as she took her final breath and her heart beat its last beat. The angel's mind whirled. _The same last words. How can this be? _Castiel gently removed her hand from his arm, getting to his feet. It was the same as last time. There was no reaper to collect her soul... why would there be? Again, in the space of time his eyes might've flickered off her momentarily, her soul simply vanished from her body. No one was sent from Heaven or Hell to collect a soul that wasn't there. He looked up at the nuns, and within the blink of an eye he was standing in front of them. There were a few gasps as they backed away like a single entity. Only a single question was on his mind.

"The girl who died. Who was she?"

Most of the nuns just stared at Castiel with wide eyes, unsure of what to make of the disappearing and reappearing man. To them, it looked as if the disappearing man had revived the brown-haired girl for a few seconds longer than what was natural. One of the elders answered first.

"Th-that is Sister Oswald. She takes care of the children and co-..." The elder was cut off, replaced by another voice.

"We need to stop meeting like this Castiel."

Castiel hadn't even felt the change in locations. It had happened faster than the blink of an eye. The angel's eyes squinted in confusion, as he looked around his new location. The room was very... bright. Light came in from everywhere, though the main source was from the wall of rectangular frosted glass windows to his left. Almost all the furniture was either light grey or white. It seemed very metallic and much more sterile than any place on Earth in 1343. The room was dominated by a metal office desk and the woman sitting behind it. Or should one say _angel_. In front of the desk, two white armchairs were placed.

Castiel didn't recognize her, but he knew she was an angel from her wings. She wore a impeccable grey suit that was a shade darker than the office desk she sat at. The same shade as her eyes. A white button-down shirt was underneath that. She had brown hair that was pulled into a tight bun. She was a bit like a bird of prey. Castiel looked at her cautiously.

"Where am I?" The angel's deep voice was confused. "Who are you?"

"My name is Naomi. As for where you are; this is Heaven. Don't you recognize it? Actually, you won't, would you? Have a seat," she responded in a calm, professional manner. The angel in a trench coat hesitated momentarily, before he stepped around to the front of the armchair, sitting down. His blue gaze moved back to the angel who sat in front of him in the room. He remained silent as she spoke.

"Castiel, we can't have you going around displaying your angelic powers to London. Your orders are to not interfere. To just observe and report back to your superiors. If action needs to be taken, they will be the ones to decide that. Not you."

Something in the back of Castiel's mind, something that had been dormant for a long time, fluttered to life. It was like the caged bird in the back of his mind and woken up, an was banging against the bars of the cage to free itself. Trying to warn him of imminent danger before something bad happened. However, the bird wasn't out yet. Castiel stayed seated in the chair, no emotion crossing his face.

"I don't think just telling you is enough this time, regrettably. The only thing that seems to fix you, Castiel, is a complete reprogramming any time something like this happens"

It was like that the bars of the metaphorical bird cage came tumbling down, setting the bird loose. Memories of the tortures Naomi had subjected to him in the past resurfaced. Unimaginable pain. The kind beyond a human's perception. Also memories of the times he had helped people, and how those actions had been awarded with torture and suffering. His breathing quickened. _This is so wrong._ Immediately as the memories snapped back into place for a moment, he jumped to his feet, angel blade sliding into his hand on instinct. All too late, however. Unknown to Cas, two guards were now standing behind him. His gaze, however, was only on Naomi, who hadn't even gotten up from her chair.

"What have you done to me?"

Naomi just smiled. A cold, humorless smile.

"Nothing that you will remember by the time you return to your garrison, I think."

Naomi gave a small nod to the guards behind Cas. Both of the angels behind him went to grab Cas' arms, but he was too fast. Cas may've not been in a direct fight in years, but he was a very experience angel who wasn't going to go down without a fight. The angel of the Lord turned on his heel to face to guards, at the same time dropping low to the ground to duck their hands. He took two steps back, his blade held at the ready in front of him. The blue eyes flickered between the guards. One was a female with long blonde hair, and the other one was a heavy-set man that was about twice Cas' size. Counting Naomi, he was outnumbered 3 to 1. Both guards came at him in unison, causing Cas to have to dodge out of the way, already backed up against the desk in the small room.

Cas retaliated, slashing widely, managing to cut the blonde, causing her to back up a few paces. The other guard looked over at his partner, hesitating momentarily. In just enough time to give Cas the opportunity to stab the big man through the middle. There was a bright flash, and the big angel fell to the ground, the outline of his wings obvious against the white room. When the light faded, he turned to find Naomi standing right beside him. Faster than he had time to react, she placed two fingers against his forehead, a common way to sedate the angel. For just a second, Cas fought it. He fought the dizziness and weakness he felt as Naomi's power took effect. But in the end there was no point. The rebel angel crumpled to the ground, next to the man he had just killed. Naomi returned to her seat like nothing had happened.

"The usual. Wipe this from his memories. Back to the factory settings. Get that body out of here too. Now, if you don't mind, I have work I need to get done."


	13. Looking Back: Part Two

**Christmas Eve, 1842 A.D.**

Snow that wasn't really snow.

He encountered Miss Oswald a few unmentioned times between the twelfth and seventeenth century, however the time he was actually on assignment from Heaven to attempt to understand what was going on was definitely the most distinctive memories. He had been assigned to discover where the snow was coming from, if not controlled by Heaven.

He had tracked a disturbance to the centre of London, where a pond was frozen over. Something that was rather odd, as every other body of water had already defrosted. So why was this body of water still frozen? He waited outside the fence, simply staring at the pond, unmoving and invisible to the human eye. He was told to find answers, but he wasn't to get involved unless absolutely necessary.

Nearing the end of the second day was when something occurred, he heard a shout from above that sound human. It was quite perplexing as humans couldn't exactly be _above_ him. It was just clouds and heaven above.

He was proven wrong when the body of a brunette woman hit the ground in yard on the other side of the gate. She had fallen from the London sky. He looked at her, half-expecting it to be a fallen angel or something of the sort with that sort of landing. It wasn't.

It was the woman _again_. Castiel appeared visible moving closer toward the fence to get a better look at her. He knew almost every bone in her body must be broken from a fall like that; there was no helping her. He did momentarily meet her gaze, however this was cut off as the blue box he associated with the brunette girl materialized around the woman's broken body for the first time he had ever seen. Castiel had seen Clara protect the box, but never the other way around. Before his presence would be made known, he disappeared again. He watched the house until the blue police box disappeared again and the snow turned to rain.

* * *

><p><strong>Christmas, 1869 A.D.<strong>

It was a snowy day in Cardiff, Wales. The atmosphere was rather peaceful for the most part, and Castiel was watching over the Welsh town. He wasn't expecting any trouble. With such a large gap in time between anything happening in his long life, it wasn't surprising that the angel was more than a bit bored. That was until he heard screams from the theatre. The angel paused, before he seemingly materialized in the street. No one actually noticed this oddity, as everyone was too busy running around panicking about ghosts. Quietly, the celestial being made his way to the door, quickly sliding in before another wave of panicked human stampeded out of the doorway. He stood on the edge of the theatre, watching the chaos that was unfolding. No one paid him a second glance, which was strangely ironic considering how religious society was in the 18th century in comparison to other centuries.

Blue energy was swirling around the room, seemingly coming from the corpse of a woman in in the centre of the theatre. As people rushed past him, he noticed that two pairs of people were running against the crowd. A man in a jumper and leather jacket and a blonde woman, and an older man and raven haired woman. The man in a jumper ran to the person who was standing on the stage, who seemed to be in a complete state of disbelief about the situation. The other pair of people began carrying the source of the blue energy out of the room. The blonde woman who had been with the man in the jumper ran off following the aforementioned pair. People were running around, yelling about ghosts. Castiel spoke under his breath.

"Those are not spirits. Those are something else."

"Yes, definitely not ghosts. Gas creatures. Actually, you've got really modern clothing for this century. I would take more interest in that 'cept I've got more important matters to attend to. Like Rose."

The man wearing the jumper was the one to respond to Castiel, as he was running past him and out the door after the crowd of people. Castiel had to assume Rose was the blonde woman he had been with earlier. Even still, he wasn't quite sure it mattered. So if one person noticed him? It wasn't as if he had stopped and taken an interest, then there would have been a problem. As the theatre emptied, Castiel walked back outside to the chaos that was now on the streets. People ran around at random, shouting. Cas even heard the sound of gunfire echoing once or twice. Probably the result of a very panicked human. Castiel, not really knowing what else to do, walked down the street at a slow pace, a little ways away from the chaotic mass of people. It was then multiple things happened at once. A carriage began moving the street, another horse-drawn carriage moving quickly behind it, chasing after it. The angel watched curiously for a moment, before he noticed two people break from the crowd. The first was a man waving around a gun, pointing at the carriages with a crazed look in his eye. The second was _the_ woman. She ran at the man faster than the shooter could reposition his pistol, tackling the man to the ground. The gun let off a final shot, right into the woman's chest. The shooter looked around, panicked still, running off.

Castiel, now having a purpose, quickly moved forward. Without a second thought, he scooped her into his arms and disappeared with her with the sound of a flutter of wings. They reappeared in an empty alleyway, this time in London. He gently lowered her to the ground, assessing the damage. The wound was fatal, there was no doubt in that. However, the woman was a fighter. She was gasping for breath, her eyes dilated in panic. She looked at Castiel, and for some reason she seemed to relax. She asked one question, her voice weak. Her accent was Welsh this time.

"Is he safe?"

The angel, not really knowing what else to do, nodded slightly.

She relaxed, her head now resting against the ground. Her eyes were still fixed on his face, as if she were trying to remember him. Her eyes started to go distant as she spoke, like she could no longer focus on him.

"I-I don't even think I know 'im. At the same time, I feel like I've known him my entire life, like my life was just ther' to be used to save him. The Doctor. I would do anything to keep him safe. I love him."

Her eyes began to close, as she breathed her last words.

"Run you clever boy and..."

Unlike the rest of the times, her life left her before she could say anything more.

* * *

><p><strong>March 3, 1942 A.D.<strong>

New York City. A city that never sleeps. Not a phase Castiel quite understood, as all the humans within the city slept rather often in comparison to angels. If you were being literal, _Heaven _was the city that never slept.

The angel was currently watching over a technology expo. One might ask why he had been assigned to this particular place by Heaven. Their reasoning was that demons might take advantage of the very non-religious environment and the people inside it. Castiel could see the logic in that argument. Besides, orders were orders. Castiel didn't dwell on thoughts that were outside his orders. It wasn't his place to question God's plan.

People were moving through the crowd to presentations, reminding the angel vaguely of ants crawling around sugar. Marveling at the new scientific wonders that were all around. It was an example of how quickly humanity had advanced in recent years. But with progress in one area, the progress in another area starts to reverse. The more lives people saved with technology, it seemed, the darker the world became. The more people were willing to kill for each other. The problems in Germany were only the start. The world seemed to be slowly taking a turn for the worst.

_Things get worse before they get better, Castiel. This is God's plan. _Castiel's train of thought came to a halt when a familiar woman appeared yet again. _The_ woman. With a moment's hesitation, the angel materialized on the ground again in a small flash of light. He had gotten the attention of a few nearby humans, who seemed to just think Castiel was the example of another piece of technology, with so much of that going around. There was a weak, confused applause for a second, before they saw the emotionless look on the angel's face and they went back to what they had been doing before. The angel paused for a moment, before he moved to a better vantage point of where the woman was.

_This is becoming too much of a habit. How many times have I done this already? Too many to count._ Still, these thoughts didn't prevent him from circling around the edge of the crowd until he was able to see the person he had been looking for. Curiosity, in regard to this certain individual, had gotten the better of him. Despite the fact he still didn't even know the woman's name. Hours passed, and the angel remained stoic, watching the woman and her date weave around the crowd a majority of the night. His focus was no longer on keeping an eye out for demons. It was more on the mystery woman.

It was this which was the problem. Demons were around, and because the angel was focused on something different. It wasn't until after the woman and her date left did he notice this particular fact.

A blonde stopped in front of the angel, staring at him for a long moment. There was a short pause as blonde tried to figure out what he was, as she had never seen an angel. This was her last thought before Castiel stepped forward without a thought, pressing his hand against the woman's head. Her mouth opened up in a silent scream and she fell to the ground. Before anyone could get a good look at him, the angel disappeared from sight without a word.


	14. Looking Back: Part Three

**November 3, 1968 AD.**

The sky was overcast and grey, possibly foreshadowing the coming of snow soon in the future. It was definitely cold enough in London today for it. This was a frigid day that came in series of days equally as icy. The grass crunched under the feet of people crossing the park to get to their jobs and workplaces, the ground frozen solid from the cold. Many wore thick coats and scarves to protect against the biting cold. A man in a trench coat was sitting on a bench overlooking the park. This wasn't a sight that grabbed the immediate attention of any hurrying Londoner. Why should it? However, the presence of this man was much more unusual than the average human, despite the fact that his motives would be considered quite ordinary.

He was looking for a woman.

When Castiel had discovered that he was to watch over the city of London again, the angel's suppressed memories regarding the appearance of the mysterious "Oswald" woman had again resurfaced. Naomi hadn't deleted them, as she was unaware that the angel had ever interfered for any reason. Even still, Cas knew better than to let thoughts of disobedience linger in his mind for too long, as the result wouldn't be pretty if any of his brothers and sisters found out. However, as London was mentioned, the place he had encountered this woman the most times in the past, he knew he had to be ready to disobey. He needed to know who she was. How did she somehow not exist on angelic radar? How did she keep reappearing, after he was completely sure she had died? Why didn't a reaper come to collect her soul? Why did her soul simply seem to disappear into the Void, despite the fact he knew the power within a human soul couldn't be destroyed? What was the mysterious "TARDIS" that correlated with her appearance? What was the strange grace-like essence the blue box seemed to give off? What great power did this box have? Who was this "Doctor" person she always seemed to die in the process of saving? _Why_ did she keep saving him if it lead to her own destruction?

There were so many questions about this, and he had no answers to how or why. It was something that had never happened to the angel. Heaven usually held the answers, but there wasn't anything in Heaven that could explain this situation. He couldn't question it, as that would be showing doubt. This didn't satisfy his curiosity, however. It was this reason he had taken a vessel in London. The start of a basic plan was in his mind.

He was going to save Miss Oswald this time.

Castiel's blue eyes remained on his surroundings as he waited though his silent vigil. He almost could've been mistaken for a statue, he was so stoic. It was fact that destiny was on his side that he didn't have to wait long until the pattern he had seen more than one time before start to replay over again in the park. A man in what seemed to be a thick fur coat ran out across the park, maybe 20 yards from where the angel was sitting. His eyes immediately switched to him, as he was the fastest moving person around. However, it was the person the man nearly ran into who got his attention even more. She had been facing away from him, right up until the moment the runner brushed by her, causing the brown-haired woman to whirl around to where Castiel saw enough of her face to recognize her. Immediately, the angel was on his feet.

The woman didn't even notice Castiel watching her now. She seemed to have forgotten about whatever she had walked to before, and the woman broke into a run after the man, who Castiel could only assume was "the Doctor" yet again. The woman was faster than she looked, already catching up to the Doctor within a few moments. She might have even caught up with him, if she hadn't tripped over something in her haste. It was then Castiel started to move forward to get into contact with her, but somehow the woman got back to her feet. She was still moving in the direction the Doctor was going, however the angel could tell she had injured herself when she fell. The human wasn't moving as nearly as fast as she had been. She made up for it by shouting after the person she was chasing. Even as she began to move into the open road...

"Not again."

The two words were a promise whispered the millisecond before the trench-coat wearing angel disappeared, reappearing next to the woman in front of incoming traffic. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her back, the car speeding past them by inches. The red car screeched to a halt, causing another car to collide with it from behind a few hundred yards down, stopping traffic. Castiel's attention wasn't on the wreak, but on the woman he had just saved. She looked slightly dazed, as if she had just woken up from a deep sleep. She looked up at Castiel in mute shock. Even so, it didn't stop Castiel from asking the question that had been bothered him for decades.

"Who are you?"

He waited expectantly for an answer, not even seeming to notice the fact that police sirens were sounding in the background, or the fact that a reaper moved in unseen to take away the soul of a person who had died in the car accident caused by him. The angel's complete focus was on her answer.

"Clara Oswin Oswald. You?"

She was still in his arms, and the angel had a feeling she might topple over if he took a step away as he wished to. He had always been curious about who she was, but he had never really thought about the consequences of actually meeting her. It meant he would have to... speak. Communicate with words. It wasn't an area had had much experience in. He could count on his vessel's fingers the amount of times he remembered being in direct communication with a human being, despite the fact that all he did was watch them. However, still he still responded to her almost immediately.

"Castiel."

She tilted her head, straightening up slightly, resigning herself to simply leaning on his shoulder. A wince contorted her face when she had attempted to hold a bit of her weight on her ankle. She looked up at him, an odd look in her brown eyes. A mix of shock, embarrassment, and confusion that Castiel didn't really understand. She spoke after a second. Her words sounded a bit disjointed, like she was working just to formulate words.

"Well, Castiel. I guess I have to thank you for... saving my life. I-I don't know what came over me," she paused, looking down at her ankle, which was twisted at a awkward angle. "I don't even remember ever meeting that man. Ever. Some instinct..."

"Love."

"How did you...- ummm, maybe I wasn't going to say love. I wasn't even sure I was going to say love yet. How did you know I was going to say that before I knew I was going to say that?"

She looked back at Castiel, and was met with his usual emotionless expression. [i]So she doesn't remember any of it.[/i] Before she could protest, he picked her up, moving her carefully to the bench where he had been sitting previously, lowering her on to it. Almost like a child, he sat in the grass next to her, his trench coat splayed out behind him. Her brown eyes were still fixed on him, waiting for his response.

"Because it is what you said before."

"I don't think I would have forgotten this happening before. Rather positive, actually. This whole thing is rather memorable."

"You forgot me."

Another silence stretched between them, which Castiel didn't mind. Clara was seemingly at a loss for words again, which was unusual for the amount she usually talked. Cas took the moment to examine the woman's ankle. Automatically, he placed a hand against the wound, immediately healing it without giving too much thought into it. It was natural for him to help the wounded; it was one of his basic powers. However, her lips parted in shock. She sat up, immediately testing her ankle again.

"Did I actually get hit by that car and you just happen to be a hallucination? Is that it? Did you give me drugs or something?"

Castiel looked at her blankly, getting to his feet as she did. He didn't understand. Clara must've noticed the perplexed look in his eyes, so she continued, elaborating.

"Clearly not a hallucination then. Castiel is too exotic of a name for me to come up with in. Is it French? Either way, I'm just going to call you Cas. Okay? Okay. However, nothing explains how you healed me like that..."

"I'm an angel of the Lord."

"Your joshing me. Seriously?"

Castiel just blinked at her, and she seemingly got the point.

"You don't really seem to be the joking type. So you're not kidding. Excuse me from internally freaking out that a celestial being actually bothered to save my life. Oh my stars... alright. You know what? I owe you a cup of tea. Maybe a bit of soufflé."

Police cars were pulling up behind them, moving toward the wreck. Still, neither of them paid any mind to the chaos around them. However, the chaos around them took notice of them. Only a minute had passed before a officer came over to get an inquiry from the two. Castiel responded to Clara as the police officer came up.

"I don't eat... or drink."

The officer came up behind Cas, tapping his shoulder. He spoke in a Northern drawl, though the last words came out American.

"Did either of you see anything... oh holy hell. "

The exclamation occurred when Castiel turned around. Clara was perplexed by this, but Cas wasn't. He knew before he even looked what was behind him. A demon. He immediately stepped between Clara and the creature inhabiting the body of the officer. After finally finding Clara, he wasn't going to let her get killed on his own account. As soon as the demon looked at Cas, it knew it had made a big mistake. The eyes of the demon flickered to blood red, indicating it was a crossroads demon. Clara gasped. She wasn't anything but a normal human, Castiel realized, so she hasn't seen anything like this before. It wasn't normal to encounter a demon in your lifetime, much less an angel. The police demon spoke, tilting it's head in a way that made it resemble some kind of insect-like creature with it's blood red eyes.

"Of all the things I was expecting to find today, it wasn't an angel in a vessel. I'm sorry. I won't go off and kill any more children. Shit."

Castiel took a step forward, and immediately a funnel of dark, blood red smoke poured out of the man's mouth before Castiel could react. The smoke sank into the ground. The police officer crumpled to the ground, and Clara immediately rushed out from behind the angel, despite his slight protest, and kneeled next to the police officer, checking for a pulse. The angel already knew the result, as he sensed a reaper was coming.

"He's dead. Like, dead. How are going to explain a dead police officer to other police? How did he die? What the hell was that? ...what are you doing?"

Castiel was pulling Clara back to her feet as she spoke, pulling her away from the dead body. He knew quite well that he should have immediately smote the demon upon seeing it, but he didn't have time with his thoughts focused on protecting Clara. Now that he had let the demon get away, it was perfectly capable of going and tattling to its superiors, telling them that there was an angel who was in the vulnerable point of possessing a vessel like he was now. Angels rarely came down from Heaven, and never without orders. They probably assumed that something important was going on. Heaven-certified important.

Also, already two reapers could have noticed him, as they probably sensed his presence as they picked up their assigned souls. They might have told the other angels, or like angels are taught to they might have not questioned it. That is what would have happened if he was lucky. Either way, Castiel needed to get Clara and himself away from this place. Quickly. He placed a hand on Clara's shoulder, and in a flutter of wings they disappeared from where they had been only seconds ago. Because it was the first and farthest place he could think of. It was this reason they ended up in the middle of the ruins of Pompeii. They had landed in one of the parts blocked off the public, and it was so silent it was almost ghostly. Castiel removed his hand from Clara's shoulder, taking a few steps away from her. She was staring at him with her big brown eyes, completely confused. In contrast, a hint of emotion had entered Castiel's motionless face. Curiosity and even deeper, a bit of fear. He had just gone against Heaven in a very obvious manner by leaving the area he was supposed to be watching over.

The sky was blue, in compared with the grey and cloudy sky of London. It was still chilly, but not as chilly as it had been in London. Comfortable warmth touched the skin as the sun heated the earth. It, however, was still as humid. Pompeii looked like a nuclear bomb went off, but in reality it had just been the force of one very powerful volcano.

"Where are we?"

"These are the ruins Pompeii."

It took a moment for this to sink in for Clara as she looked around, a bit of understanding entering her eyes. Before Castiel had time to organize his thoughts completely, she spoke again.

"Why are we here, of all places? What was that smoke stuff inside the police man? I'm just going to ignore the fact that you just teleported me here somehow from the middle of London."

Castiel looked around, before his gaze moved to a spot about a foot over Clara's head.

"We needed to get away from that location. If I had been faster, you would not have been in danger. It was a demon possessing the human's body, but it got away. It is incredibly unusual for an angel to take a vessel and be walking on Earth, so it most definitely alerted its superiors. As for this particular location, this was the first place I encountered you."

"Never been to Pompeii in my life."

"In this life."

Clara paused, rubbing her temples as she tried to process this. Finally, she took a step forward, confronting Castiel, crossing her arms. She spoke in a rapid fire fashion, words tumbling from her mouth faster than it was possible for her even to understand, much less Cas.

"I don't know you! I've never seen you before! I don't know who you're talking about but I'm not 'er. I've never been to Pompeii... I've never even left the United Kingdom before! I don't know why I ran after that man... I don't even know how I knew his name was the Doctor. I'm a normal girl who works in a café making soufflés and tea for people. I do it because I love seeing the faces of kids as they get good food. Just a normal girl, not some interesting and mysterious person who you read about in stories who can see angels and demons everywhere. This isn't a novel! Would you please just explain what-..."

She was interrupted as Castiel took a step forward, placing two fingers on each of her temples, causing her to go silent.

"Let me show you."

Before Clara could protest, Cas thought back to the first time he had encountered the brunette woman, and he projected the memory of this event into her mind.

* * *

><p>As Clara experienced the fall of Pompeii through the angel's eyes, she slowly began shaking. With a mental link like the one Castiel was using, Clara also got glimpses into the angel's thoughts at the time, especially the part about how he wasn't supposed to interfere, and the result of if he did. Unlike the emotionless Castiel, she understood that all these people were dying. She cared for each individual person, knowing that they all died much sooner than they should've. Upon seeing herself, she froze slightly, not comprehending that it was herself for the moment. However, as she saw a boulder coming down from the sky toward the blue box in the vision, she had the same instinctive reaction she had when the other version of Clara had seen it in Pompeii... the same reaction she had to seeing the Doctor a few minutes ago. Castiel felt the woman's adrenaline surge as he was mentally linked with her, though he didn't really know what to categorize it as. Angels weren't taught to understand emotion, as Castiel was no exception. He might sometimes feel emotion, though he didn't really know what it was. After the version of Clara had died in Pompeii, he removed his hands from her temples. She was silent for a moment, looking downward. When she looked up, unshed tears were in her eyes. Castiel was a bit too close to her to be polite, but he didn't know any better.<p>

"Oh my stars. I understand why you're confused... but all those people. Me being there... dying... how is that possible? It can't be real."

"I don't know..."

"When I heard there was an angel on the ground I told the guy that I wouldn't believe it unless I saw it with my own two eyes. Now I see I shouldn't have cut the head off of the guy who ratted on you. I was almost positive he was lying or crazy."

Before Clara had time to react to the new voice, Castiel's head immediately snapped up. She saw him immediately straighten, pushing her behind him as a sliver blade seemed to appear out of his hand from nowhere. Maybe a sheath up his sleeve, she guessed. However, the real thought that was going through her head was along the lines of _He's armed. With a knife. He has a freaking sword. What have I gotten myself into?_ The man who had spoken was standing about 3 yards away from them, his hands in his pockets. He looked completely normal... human. Except for the fact that his eyes didn't have any pupils. They were like swirling pools of yellow sulfur. He kept talking, and from the look that entered the angel's eye she had a strange feeling that the knife Castiel had was about to find itself lodged into the yellow-eyed man's chest. He kept talking.

"Apparently not as crazy as I thought. I didn't expect to find a full seraph being the watchdog for a little brown-haired human. Definitely worth a trip to Pompeii."

Castiel spoke one word, and it was so full of hate that Clara took a small step back from her new angelic protector. She hadn't heard any other emotion find its way into the angel's voice until that moment, and it wasn't a friendly emotion. Clara automatically trusted the celestial being's instinct or what was and wasn't safe, as he had saved her life only a few minutes previously.

"Azazel."

The name was completely unfamiliar to Clara, but apparently it meant something to the angel. An enemy? Definitely not human, so probably another demon. From the way Cas reacted, much more dangerous than the last one that they had encountered. Clara peered around the angel's shoulder, having to get on her toes to be able to see over the angel who had a good five inches in height to her. She listened as Cas spoke, trying to understand at least part the events that were currently unfolding.

"This has nothing to do with you or any demon."

"If the brigade of heavenly soldiers thought it was enough to roll off your clouds for and take vessels, it's pretty damn important. Where are the rest of your buddies anyways?"

Azazel paused, looking around as if expecting a couple of angels to appear out of thin air around him. As nothing seemed to happen, a cynical and terrifying smile stretched across the lips of the yellow-eyed demon. He looked between Castiel and the girl with the huge eyes he was protecting. Castiel, not being one for speaking much, didn't add anything that could be remotely considered a explanation. The demon suddenly cackled, a sound that sent the hairs on the back of Clara's neck on end.

"No way. You haven't got any back up? An _angel_ acting alone without orders? Damn. Now that is interesting."

Azazel took a step forward, and Castiel took that as an incentive to attack. Faster than what Clara had ever seen, the demon unsheathed a blade with strange runes on it, holding it up to block the angel's attack. Castiel was silent, but the demon kept talking. If it wasn't getting under Cas' skin, it was definitely getting under her skin. Clara didn't even understand large parts of what was going on, but she understood bits that were significant.

"Attacking with a blade? Normally an angel would've just smote me. Trying to not tip off Heaven to where you are? Don't want them to know that one of their good little puppets has gone rouge?"

Castiel took a step back, the two blades sliding away from each other with a _shlink_ of metal. The angel turned with a flourish, trench coat floating behind him in an arch. He lunged forward, but Azazel deflected the attack, elbowing Cas in the chest and slashing his arm, knocking him backward a few feet. Unlike Azazel, Castiel didn't end up in hand-to-hand combat too much, so the angel was rusty at best. The skill was still there, that much was obvious even to Clara, however it had been decades since he had been told to take care of an actual situation. Azazel was more prepared for a battle than Cas was.

"I am loyal to Heaven alone."

The words were spoken with a unnatural lack of emotion as Castiel's left hand touched the bleeding cut on his right forearm. Rather unexpectedly, the angel lunged forward, landing a hard punch to the demon's jaw. The demon staggered back, though he was still smiling. There was the sound and movement that meant the creature's jaw was snapping back into place. Blood stained Azazel's teeth, making him look possibly even more creepy than he already did. _He is completely enjoying this._

Clara's hands were both covering her mouth, her brown eyes huge as she watched the fight unfold in front of her. The most action the soufflé cook had seen in her life before this, not including almost getting run over by a car, had been a bar fight she had witnessed the last time she had been in Trafalgar Square. That had spooked her and made her move to a nicer area of London, somewhere with kids to watch. However, this was a whole new level of terrifying, watching an angel and a demon fight in the ruins of Pompeii. As a human, this whole thing was completely beyond her normal life. She still was coping much better than a normal person. Clara was still functioning to some degree; she hadn't completely frozen like most humans would be. Azazel and Cas were still speaking, all the while trying to stab each other.

"They wouldn't send you out here without back up. Angels work in pairs and packs, I'm old enough to know how you douchebags fly. I want to know that there is a good reason that an angel happens to be interrupting me from my very important search. Who's the girl? Why is she important?"

"Curiosity."

"You're lying. Angels aren't capable of that. Demons are. We love sticking our noses into other people's business. Sometimes not just our noses."

As the demon lunged forward at Castiel, the angel grabbed the demon's arm, yanking him forward and twisting the demon's arm in a way that would have definitely dislocated it for a human. The demon actually laughed, talking a few steps back from Castiel. With a series of clicks, the demons arm twisted back from the awkward angle it had been at to a normal, natural angle. Azazel looked extremely amused.

"How about let's put your _curiosity_ to the test."

The demon winked at Castiel, before he disappeared. Before Clara had time to question what was going on, she felt the cold breath of someone behind her. Breath that smelled of eggs that had been left to rot in the fridge by accident. She felt a hand roughly grab her left shoulder, and the next moment she felt the worst imaginable pain in the small of her back. Her eyes opened wide with horror as she saw that the tip of a knife was sticking out of her diaphragm. Azazel had appeared behind Clara, and had run her through with his blade. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as she fell to the ground, Azazel sliding the knife out of her back as she fell forward. Blood blossomed from the place she had been stabbed.

* * *

><p>Castiel watched as Clara fell forward, frustration and anger filling him. The one time he manages to save her, he also managed to be the bringer of her death.<p>

"Are you willing to use you powers to heal her, and most likely get yourself killed by your angelic brother and sisters, or will you let your apparent answer to whatever you are curious about die?"

Before Azazel could say anything else, Castiel raised a hand in the demon's direction, his eyes starting to glow white with heavenly light. Before Castiel had a chance to smite the demon, however, the thing disappeared. As the light faded, Castiel moved forward to kneel beside Clara. Blood flowed through her fingers as she stared at the wound below her chest. Her brown eyes went up to look at Castiel. He moved forward to heal her but she reached up and grabbed his wrist, stopping him.

"Don't... from what I've... seen you might be able to find me again... somewhere... somehow... and get answers. You can't do that if you are dead or whatever t-the angels would do with you for disobeying."

He lowered his hand, looking at her in a confused manner. He hadn't exactly told her that. She seemed to understand why he looked perplexed, so she answered, her voice strained. She was dying, but getting stabbed in the gut took a longer time to cause death than other methods.

"You let me inside your head, remember? I saw the destruction of Pompeii through y-your eyes, and I felt your doubts. What you were feeling, what your are probably feeling, Cas, that's doubt. That's good. It means you've got free will. Hold on to that," she murmured, tears sliding from her dark eyes. A small smile touched her lips, which her red now with her own blood.

"Besides, I still owe you a British cup of tea and a soufflé."

Her eyes went distant, as she said her final words.

"Remember... run you clever boy and remember me."

It was at that moment he felt Clara give her last breath. Castiel, like the rest of the times he had seen her, felt her soul seemingly disappear from her body like it had never existed. He gently closed her eyes, and he got up onto his feet again, blue gaze downcast. With one last look at Clara's unmoving body, he disappeared from the ruins of Pompeii with a flutter of wings.

He would definitely remember her.


	15. A Look Forward

**May 3rd, 2013**

The second ride in the Impala was definitely not pleasant in the slightest. After a bit of shouting and Dean threatening to kick the Doctor out of the car and force him to walk the rest of the way, the rest of the car ride was filled with an awkward silence. Sam was partially oblivious to this, as he had been sleeping most of the way. The only time the tall man fully woke up was when they stopped in front of the huge hotel, causing him to jolt back to full consciousness. The Doctor and Dean were out of the car before Sam even got the chance to pull the door open.

Admittedly, Sam felt like crap. He felt constantly tired, weak, and a whole list of other things that made him feel rather vulnerable. For some reason, the closer they had gotten to the place Metatron was supposedly housed, the more random memories started resurfacing. Also, there was a high-pitched whine that seemed to get louder as they got closer. Apparently he looked exactly as he felt, because when he got out of the car and into the light of day, both Dean and the Doctor stopped bickering momentarily. Dean automatically walked over to his brother, patting the man's shoulder before he began to lead the way back toward the building. Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that the Doctor had taken the sonic screwdriver out and was not-so-discreetly scanning him. From the look that was on the Doctor's face, it looked as if the timelord was already picking out which color of flowers to put on his grave. _That's comforting..._

* * *

><p>As the Doctor walked into the building, he immediately knew something was wrong. Very, very <em>wrong.<em> Not like in the normal way like there was a monster nearby or some chair were turned over wrong. No, this was the unusual tingling sensation that was occurred in his mind when something was wrong with time. It was a feeling that was instinctive for timelords, and he hadn't felt it so strongly since Big Bang Two. He felt it when he entered this building, however. Immediately he stopped in his tracks, looking around for some sign of what was causing it. He looked up at the Winchesters, who were still walking up to the front desk.

"Hold it. Something isn't right. Very not right."

Dean sighed in an exaggerated manner, turning on his heel to face the Doctor. The older Winchester looked about ready to punch the Doctor to shut him up for good.

"What could be wrong now? If this is just another one of you excuses..."

"Something is wrong, trust me. It's like time is all wibbly around this building. I can sense it... ow!"

He pulled his hand out of his pocket, producing the TARDIS key. It was burning white-hot, and golden energy was pulsing around it. He knew exactly what that meant.

"The TARDIS! She is in this building. She's trying to lead us to her, come on!"

Before Sam or Dean could react, the Doctor raced past the front desk, past a confused-looking Native American desk clerk, who didn't seem to have a strong urge to chase after a British man in a bowtie through his hotel. The brothers honestly didn't have much of a choice other than to follow quickly behind the timelord. As the Doctor got closer, the pulsing of the TARDIS key got faster when they were almost there, Sam shouted for them to stop. Dean had to catch the timelord's arm and pull him to a stop, glaring at him before he walked over to his brother, his expression softening.

"Sam?"

"It stopped."

The Doctor moved over to the younger of the Winchesters, tilting his head slightly as he listened to the quick conversation going between the two brothers. He looked at Sam for a moment, and realized that some of the color had returned to his pale cheeks.

"What stopped?"

"The high-pitched whining sound. It got louder the closer we got to where Metatron is, but it's gone now."

The Doctor furrowed his eyebrows, looking between the key and Sam. He seemed to decide to listen to the pulsing key.

"We'll look into that, after we find the TARDIS. Come along, Winchesters!"

He ran down the hall, turning in random directions before he came to a sudden halt in front of a door. This was it. It was where he felt the time imbalance was the strongest, and where the key was pulsing the most. He glanced over at Sam and Dean and nodded to them. A grin was on his face, however both of the Winchesters were frowning slightly.

Dean pushed the Doctor away from the door, opening and walking in first in case there was a threat of some sort. Sam followed behind his brother, and the Doctor went in last.

What they saw was not what any of them expected.

* * *

><p>The room was piled high with books. Floor to ceiling, nothing but books. However, that isn't what Dean, the Doctor, or Sam were paying attention to.<p>

The first thing Dean took a notice to was the person who was standing to the left of the room, leaning again a pile of books to keep himself upright. A familiar trench coat-wearing angel was standing to the side, his blue eyes fixated on Dean. The angel looked much more unkempt than usual, as his usual scruff had grown out to a bit of a beard. Something that, Dean noted, he couldn't have grown out in the space of time it took for them to drive from the bunker to the hotel. Castiel had an expression on his face that Dean couldn't quite remember seeing on him before. Something between relief, awkwardness, and exhaustion. It was a way too human expression for the celestial being.

The second oddity was the demon that was currently lounging in the left armchair. Crowley had his left leg crossed over his right. In his hand was a blood-stained angel blade, which he was currently cleaning off with a black handkerchief. Flesh blood. Next to armchair was the body of a plump man in a sweater who was dead on the ground with multiple stab wounds. The outline of small wings was imprinted on the ground next to him, showing that the dead man had been an angel. _That must be Metatron. What the hell?_

The man in the other armchair was unknown to any of them. He looked rather old, possibly over 50 years of age. He had curly gray hair and very bushy eyebrows. He was reading a book labeled _Dealing With People You Can't Stand: How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst_. The book was by two people named Dr. Rick Brickman and Dr. Rick Kirschner, two people Dean had never heard of before. Nor did he have any interest in finding out. Next to him on the right was none other than the blue police telephone box they had been looking for. As the Doctor walked in behind Sam and Dean, the man with the eyebrows looked up immediately, closing his book with a snap. He was the first to break the silence with his Scottish lilt.

"I wasn't expecting you to follow the Winchesters here. I thought you would've stayed with Clara and the younger Castiel. Seems like I miscalculated that one."

Crowley looked over at the grey-haired man, looking slightly bothered by the comment.

"You love raining on parades, don't you, Doctor? We just saved the flipping world."

Dean saw the 11th Doctor's mouth drop open when Crowley said this, though he was barely aware of this. He was looking between the bearded Castiel, the smug Crowley, and the 12th Doctor in completely bewilderment. They seemed to know exactly what was going on. On the other hand, Dean was still in the dark. The older hunter's voice was a confused rasp.

"What the hell. What the _freaking_ hell is going on?"

Dean looked between Cas and Sam, before repeating. He was slowly walking toward the bearded Castiel, standing in front of the angel. His friend. His family.

"Like seriously what the hell. Cas, why are you working with Crowley? You've been down that road before..."

Crowley looked over the 12th Doctor, commenting softly before getting to his feet, "I told you the reaction would be worth it." He got a shrug from Twelve at this remark, before Crowley turned to Sam, Dean, and Eleven.

"Hello boys. Lovely to see all of you again. Instead of cursing at all of us, you should be thanking us for putting out the spark before it even lit. Or however Eyebrows explained it."

"What are you talking about? All I remember is you," Dean pointed to Crowley, taking a step forward toward the demon, "Stealing Doc's time machine, kidnapping people."

"That was just to get your attention and to get you out-of-the-way. I wanted to avoid any paradoxes that might cause memory loss." Twelve broke in, who was still staring at a very shocked Eleven. Eleven was muttering something about how he had gotten older and confusion about how on Gallifrey he had managed to regenerate. Seemingly reading the other's mind, Twelve responded mysteriously with the word "Spoilers."

Castiel waved a hand as a way of getting the attention of the other people in the room. It was such an odd gesture for the angel of the Lord, it immediately grabbed the attention of the others in the room. He still looked completely drained.

"I think it would be best to start with an explanation from the beginning."

Sam spoke up for the first time, looking even more drained than Cas, "You think? Seriously Cas?"

The angel's blue eyes flickered over to Twelve, as if looking for confirmation that he should, in fact, explain. _Since when does as wait for someone else to tell him how to_ _act? _Dean was fighting whether to shake Cas to his senses or to punch Twelve in the nose. He began after Twelve gave him a single nod.

"Well, it started a year and a half from now in 2014, when you... Dean, turned into a demon."

"_WHAT?_"

"Let 'im finish."

Dean fell silent reluctantly when the Twelfth Doctor shushed him, his thick eyebrow furrowed. Cas looked at Dean nervously, before he continued.

"You turned into a demon after you got stabbed while wearing the Mark of Cain. After you died, the Mark took over and you became a Knight of Hell 0.2. Cain's champion. Sam found you and initially we were able to reverse the Mark with a spell, turning you into a human again. However, the Mark was still there... and by 2015, you were a demon again. This time, instead of avoiding Sam and I, you hunted us. The first thing you were after was take vengeance toward anyone who had wronged you, or demon you, which lead to a killing spree. You had killed Sam and Clara both in addition to Charlie Bradbury and stolen the Twelfth Doctor's TARDIS in under a week. I fled. You were planning to kill Crowley and take his throne in Hell. After a few months, I returned to Earth.

"Upon getting back on Earth, I was immediately met by a rather irate Doctor who was worried about his TARDIS. It was only a few more moments before Crowley arrived, needing protection from the Knight of Hell he had accidentally created. We... we came up with a plan. Twelve would teach Crowley how to pilot the TARDIS. I would use the remainder of my stolen grace to transport myself and Crowley to the past. With the TARDIS, he managed to find a way to use the remainder of my grace without killing me in the process. To a place in time we knew the Eleventh Doctor would be with his TARDIS. Crowley would make it seem he was up to something different to send the Winchesters of the past of a wild goose chase with the Eleventh and Clara to keep you out-of-the-way.

"From there, Crowley picked me up in the TARDIS. I'm completely human now, I couldn't go back on my own. He then piloted the TARDIS back to our time to pick up the Twelfth Doctor and he piloted the Eleventh's TARDIS to here to stop this whole thing from where it began. The root of the problem. Metatron."

Silence ensued after that. Sam and Dean were both staring at Cas in shock, completely reeling at the information he had given him. Eleven was still watching Twelve and vice versa.

"Why are you telling us this?" questioned Eleven, obviously worried about paradoxes still. Twelve at his younger self, taking a step forward so he was only a foot away from his former self.

"Because it isn't going to happen now, and I think that is all that matters."

"But the paradoxes...!"

"None of it was a fixed point. Actually, all of it was very changeable. I like this outcome a lot better than the other one, the other one being a Knight of Hell having my TARDIS. And Clara being rather dead, which would be catastrophic. The only thing that is going to happen now is this version of myself, that version of Castiel, and that version of Crowley are all going to cease to exist rather soon, the moment the universe catches up to the events that have changed. We'll be replaced with more cheerful versions of ourselves in the future, as long as the three of you don't mess things up. Just take your TARDIS, Eleven, and forget this ever happened. That is what you are good at, isn't it? Just wish it away like a _fairytale._"

Eleven looked down momentarily, refusing to look at his older regeneration. Without another word, Eleven snapped his fingers and stormed into the open doors to his TARDIS. Sam spoke up finally, asking the question that was on his mind. It was the whole reason they had come here, after all.

"But what about the Trials?"

"You'll sort it out. It is what you do. I wouldn't suggest finishing them, however, as you didn't last time either. Whoever completely them also dies apparently. Sacrifice and whatnot."

"Ha. Maybe you won't try turning _me_ into a human this time!"

Sam just shook his head, completely bewildered. He looked over at Dean who responded with.

"I've got nothing."

There was a silence, before Eleven's voice echoed out of the TARDIS.

"I suggest you stop talking to them, as it'll just make more paradoxes! Get in the TARDIS! Move along!"

Sam exchanged a look with Dean, before immediately obeying the Doctor and getting in the TARDIS. Dean lingered outside for a moment longer, his eyes still fixed on the human Castiel. _Castiel as a human. I don't even..._ Out of all the things, it was what he was having the most trouble wrapping his head around imagining. To Dean's eternal surprise, the angel smiled slightly. Actually smiled.

"Goodbye, Dean. Take care of your brother," the angel paused, "and of Clara. Take care of her as well."

Dean couldn't do anything but nod, backing into the TARDIS and shutting the blue doors on the impossible trio of people in the room full of books.


	16. Nothing Happened

Dean, still processing the information he had just gotten from future versions of Cas, Crowley, and Twelfth Doctor, took a second to realize he had stepped into a spaceship. Sam was leaning against the railing, looking around with huge eyes at the room straight out of a science fiction show that was around them. The flooring was glass, and it was easy to see through to the machinery under the console. With the line of work the Winchesters were in, it wasn't easy to shock either of them. However, this qualified.

The Doctor was at the thing with buttons in the middle of the room, flipping levers and switches as he moved around the console. From what Dean could tell, he looked eager to get things moving along. However, Dean still didn't completely understand what just happened. Actually, the whole thing was like some massive blur in his mind

"What the hell just happened? Like seriously, _what the hell_?"

His hand immediately went to the railing as the floor jerked under them. It took less then three seconds for Dean's to feel his stomach turn over and his face to drain of its color. Of course the space-time machine flies. _Of course it freaking flies._

He felt the machine move under him with a jolt, causing him to tighten his hands on the railing, he exchanged a glance with his brother, who looked over at him. Sam mirrored Dean's confusion, but the younger of the Winchester had a smile that was slowly creeping up on his lips. It was an expression he hadn't seen in years. Excitement. Just excitement, pure and simple. A hint of amusement entered Dean's green eyes.

"Dean... we're on spaceship." Pause.

"Nerd." Another pause. Sam's smile simply widened as he looked at his brother.

"Jerk."

"Bitch."

The Doctor spoke up from the console, and both of the brothers glanced over at the alien. If there had been a hint of amusement in Dean's gaze, it immediately hardened as he looked at the Doctor. He wasn't going to let the Doctor know how interesting he thought this was. Sam, on the other hand, wasn't doing anything to hide how fascinated he was with the box, walking around the console. The timelord pulled down a lever before he turned back around to look at the two Winchesters.

"Welcome to the TARDIS. That stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."

Sam moved over to the Doctor momentarily, eyebrows raised in a question.

"So you basically mean this...spaceship... travels through time, space, and relative dimensions?"

"Well yes, and no. Time and Space, yes. However the TARDIS hasn't been capable of traveling between dimensions for years. Ever since the Timelords shut the borders between dimensions during the Last Great Time War."

Whatever the Doctor had been expecting for Sam to say next, it wasn't what he expected. It seemed he might have been expecting Sam to make a comment about the _Time War_ whatever, but he didn't. Both Winchesters had been apart of enough wars that were under the radar of a majority of humanity.

"Doctor... if this ship can't actually travel through dimensions... wouldn't it only be only Time and Space... TAS or something."

The Doctor opened his mouth to respond, before closing it again. The TARDIS hummed in way that almost seemed thoughtful. The Doctor glanced around at the console like it had said something, before glancing at Sam.

"Well, I haven't gotten that one before..."

The Doctor glanced back at the console, shushing it as if it had said something. He spoke to it momentarily in a low voice, slightly too quiet for Dean to make out. The timelord pulled down another level, and the roomed jolted before it went steady. The elder of the Winchesters straightened, looking at the Doctor, a steely look in his eyes. _I've had about enough of this._ Dean reached behind him, pulling a gun and pointing it at the timelord.

"Dean!"

"Sammy, sorry, but we both know that being too trusting is not a good idea. Especially when it comes to aliens with fancy time machines."

The Doctor turned around, before immediately raising his hands in an awkward surrender. The Doctor was about to speak, but Dean shook his head, interrupting the timelord.

"I want to know what is going on and I want to know now, Doc."

"Nothing happened."

The Doctor looked over at the two Winchesters, his light-colored gaze extremely serious. He lowered his hands slowly, looking between the two hunters.

"Everything that we saw today, about your futures... it isn't going to happen now. If I went back in my own personal timeline to fix things, I am not going to argue with myself. That future, that reality. It disappeared when we took off from the TARDIS. Time is... fluid. Time is flexible. It just twisted into a new and different formation than before. Better or worse than before, I don't know. But different. You will have to figure that particular detail out on your own. You Winchesters are at the centre of something enormous that I didn't even know about until today. I think it is only your decisions that can make this right. Your... choices. I would love to help you. Truly, but I don't think I can."

Dean didn't lower his gun while the Doctor spoke, but neither did he shoot the alien in the head when he walked across the room, unlocking the door and pushed it open. There was the sound of birds chirping from outside, and the brightness of a new day came in through the door.

Both of the Winchesters moved to get a view of outside, and found that they were parked in front of the bunker. Back in Kansas... over 200 miles in 2 minutes. Hell. This was almost as fast as angel travel. Just as uncomfortable, however. Dean silently vowed that he would never again get on the timelord's ship.

He felt a hand on the top of the gun. Sam was looking at Dean, his hand resting on the gun. Reluctantly, the older hunter lowered pistol, holding it loosely at his side. He looked at Sam for a moment, before pulling his gaze away from his brother. He began walking forward, storming past the Doctor and out of the TARDIS. He turned back when he was a good few yards away from the blue police box.

"We never said we needed your help. We've done fine for our whole lives, with things straight out of the pit of Hell on our trail. We always get by. Got it? Now if you would excuse me, I want to go get a drink... and maybe some pie."

Dean marched toward the door, unlocking it and walking back into the bunker without a second glance behind him.

Sam looked at the Doctor momentarily, then back into the TARDIS console room. After a moment of silence, he took a step out of the TARDIS as well. The spark of joy that had been there momentarily was gone, crushed by the weight of what was to come. The Doctor felt a strong surge of empathy for the younger of the Winchesters. The tall man might look intimating -there was no doubt that he was _very_ dangerous, unstable even-, but the truth of it was that this man, along with his brother... they had the weight of the world on their shoulders.

And he couldn't do anything about it. He had already meddled enough for right now.

"He isn't normally that moody. You just seem to rub him the wrong way," Sam commented, "He isn't used to... humanitarian types. Neither of us are. It's normally just kill or get killed here. You can't stop to think about the rights of something that can't be saved and will hurt more people if you don't stop it."

"There's always a way, Sam."

Sam responded with a smile that didn't quite meet his eyes. The smile of someone who had been through too much. Far too much. The Doctor couldn't even remember seeing that look in the eyes of a human. Most of the time they didn't live long enough to get that look.

"Not always, Doctor. Sometimes there is no good choice. You just have to choose the lesser of two evils. If you can save a few lives along the way, then it's a good day."

A silence followed these words, as the Doctor's light eyebrows scrunched together. He slowly began shaking his head. He spoke to Sam in a soft voice.

"Sam Winchester. Your world is one great mystery to me, and I will certainly look into it at some point. Angels and demons normally turn out to be something else impersonating angels and demons... but now that I think about there would have to be _something_ for them to be impersonating in the first place. It seems... this is it. _This_ is what those aliens were impersonating. The world I missed. Right under my nose the whole time..."

The Doctor had finally accepted the world of angels and demons. If he looked past his feelings of disbelief about it being a religious thing, he had more than enough proof in front of him to believe it. Earth never would stop surprising him.

"But that isn't the point. If you are smart enough, and you definitely are, you and your brother will find a way that is good. Trust me. Humans will always find a way to make it through. Demons or no demons."

He took a step out of the TARDIS, closing the door behind him. He broke into a grin, looking at Sam. It was like hadn't said something incredibly dramatic only a few seconds ago.

"Now, I don't want to over stay my welcome. I'll go find my companion and we'll get out of your long hair." The Doctor lead the way back to the bunker, Sam following behind him a few paces. Sam quietly shut the door behind himself, bolting it behind him.


	17. Meanwhile in the Bunker

Clara sat down in front of Castiel, two cups of tea in her hands. The smell of a cooking soufflé wafted in from the room a short distance away. She set one of the cups in front of the angel, before lacing her fingers around the cup that was in her own hand. She watched the angel eye the cup cautiously, looking at it like it was some new and unknown thing that had sprouted out of the ground. It brought a small smile to her face. Sometimes Castiel seemed old and wise to the point of being completely unreachable, but there were also times he just seemed like a newborn puppy, still trying to figure out things about the world around him. Now that she really thought about it, she realized, he reminded her a bit like the Doctor. A much calmer, more intense version of the Doctor, but he had a certain likeness to the timelord, at the very least. If she didn't know better, she could see herself suspecting him to be a future regeneration of the timelord she had grown to... care for. However, she definitely knew better. Castiel was no timelord.

"The soufflé is cooking. Maybe this time I won't burn it like I usually do. That would be a first, you know?"

Castiel was still staring at the cup of tea in front of him, before he slowly picked it up. Clara watched him, taking a sip of her own tea before she spoke. Her lips were quirked upward in a smile still. He looked at her, a bit puzzled.

"You haven't actually had tea before, have you?"

The angel examined the white cup before he looked back up at Clara. His blue gaze was much too intense for someone trying a cup of tea, but the woman had already gotten used to the constant intensity in the angel's gaze. He spoke with the utmost seriousness.

"Tea is a similar drink to coffee, right? I have had coffee before."

Clara's smirk widened slightly, and it took a bit of willpower not to giggle at the angel's remark. She covered her widening grin with her tea cup. Her soft brown eyes met the angel's bright blue.

"Cas, drink the tea. You tell me. Tea is a lot better that coffee. Especially when it's from my side of the Pond."

"...what pond, exactly?"

"The Atlantic Ocean. Just try the tea, dear."

Castiel sighed softly, lifting the cup of tea to his lips. He looked at her as if he was telling her something important. "The Atlantic Ocean isn't a pond... it's an ocean."

Finally, the angel took a sip of the tea. Momentarily, the angel looked slightly even more bewildered, before he took another careful sip. He looked back at Clara, and was met with a slightly arched eyebrow. It took him a moment before he spoke.

"This tastes nothing like coffee."

"Does that mean you like it?"

Castiel looked at her with his intense blue gaze, responding a bit cautiously.

"There seems to be more of a variety of molecules in this cup of tea than there is in the usual cup of coffee."

Clara couldn't help herself from laughing this time, which possibly made the angel even more bewildered. She took another sip of her own tea and crossed her legs before responding.

"I'm going to take that as a sign that you like it."

Castiel responded by cautiously taking another sip, still looking rather flummoxed by the tea.

Clara decided to actually try and start a conversation. She was still very curious about the two Winchesters, as she knew rather little about them. She knew that they were hunters, which gave her little information. She knew what a hunter was, even in this context. She couldn't remember exactly how, but she knew it must be from her echoes. It was how she knew some many details about demons, vampires, and all of the other things that could be supernatural in such great detail, in addition to having an angel on her shoulder.

"Cas, who exactly are the Winchesters?"

The angel looked up her, tilting his head to the side slightly. He shifted slightly in the chair he as sitting in, lowering the cup of tea.

"They are my friends. They are also probably the two best men I have probably ever known."

He was telling the truth on that count; Clara could tell immediately. However, it wasn't that she was looking for specifically. She was glad the angel had found somewhere he belonged. Also, with the extent that the angel trusted the two brothers it made her want to trust the two men too. It was useful, but not what she was searching for. She was looking for what had changed him so much.

"There's a story behind that. You know you've just piqued my curiosity. You know everything about me. It goes both ways, friend. The Winchesters changed you quite a bit since I saw you back in 68'. I just want to know what's happened to you...-"

The angel's gaze seemed to become a bit distant before he responded to Clara.

"The Apocalypse happened."

And then the angel went into his explanation, starting from the very beginning when he first met the Winchesters. Explaining how it had started with Dean breaking the first of the 66 seals, and he being the one to pull him out of Hell on command of God. How he was meant to keep an eye on the Winchesters, which lead him to sympathizing with the brothers. It was this that lead him to getting pulled into the reality of things again and learning that Heaven was not as good as it was made out to be. How he learned that God had left the building, and the whole system was being run by the archangels. How the Winchesters prevented the Apocalypse, but the result being Sam getting sent to Hell. He recounted how he had tried to bring the younger Winchester back from the Cage, but unknowingly leaving the man's soul behind. The conversation of the angel's recent past lasted a few full hours, with Clara's occasional interruptions. There was a lot more history than Clara had suspected. She finished three cups of tea and Cas had actually finished two before they got to current times.

"I am going to kill Naomi. And the Crowley," Clara mumbled under her breath. Her brown gaze was directed down into her cup of tea. She had more than enough experience with missing memories, and of all the things, this was the one that hit the closest to home. That and Sam getting his soul ripped apart. Clara's teacher instincts were kicking in, and she had a strong urge to protect two hunters along with the Doctor. Her boys. She looked up at Cas. "Do you have any idea how long they have been messing with your memories?"

Castiel stared at her momentarily, before he slowly shook his head.

"I don't know exactly."

"So there could be echoes neither of us remember."

"Theoretically, yes. Why?"

"I was thinking...-"

She trailed off when she heard the open and close of a door from in the distance. She glanced away from Castiel, who was taking another sip of the tea before he set the cup back down. Clara heard heavy footsteps coming in their direction, and when she looked at Cas for confirmation of who it was he responded.

"Dean."

The angel had been right, as it was only another 2 seconds before the elder Winchester burst through the door leading to the kitchen and dining room. He had looked agitated when he had walked in, but the fire in the man's eyes faded as he looked between Castiel and Clara. She had a sneaking suspicion that the Doctor might be the reason. Clara was the first to speak, watching as Dean walked to the cabinet, retrieved a glass cup and a bottle of liquor that she had noticed when she had been making the soufflé. As he returned and dropped in the chair next to Cas, she noticed the Winchester giving the angel an odd look that she couldn't quite identify.

"Umm... so I take it that the hunt for Metatron didn't go too well?" A thought occurred to her, and her stomach dropped, "Where is the Doctor?! And Sam?"

"They are right behind me. Don't worry so much, Clara." To confirm that, she heard the door open and close in the distance again, along with a pair of voices a bit too far to make out. Dean took a swig of alcohol, while looking straight ahead.

"She is right about one thing, Dean. Something does seem to be wrong. What happened?"

Dean just gave Castiel a look that could only be described as a silent _shut up_. He glanced back up at Clara, who was giving him a very worried look.

"Well, we found your box. The space ship is parked outside... not a sentence you get to say every day. I would suggest getting your bags together again. Your boyfriend seems more than ready to get the hell of dodge as quickly as possible. I can't help but agree with him. I don't want him around any longer than he as to be. I have come to the conclusion that he is either brilliant or insane, or both. Either way, I think it best he doesn't hang around."

Clara's heart sank, and she wasn't quite fully sure why, until she exchanged a glance with Cas. She had just found the angel again. She wasn't ready to be pulled away from the angel again so soon. However, the chances of them staying in the bunker for a few more days sunk even lower as she saw her bowtie-wearing friend appear in the doorway. He still had a contagious grin on his face as usual, but she could already tell he was more than ready to leave. Plus there was the fact that he had apparently already gathered her stuff together, as her bag was already slung over his shoulder.

"I've got me motor back Clara! I think it is about time we got out of these people's business, eh?"

Clara exchanged a look with Castiel, looking at him for reassurance. His face had gone back to its unreadable default. However, when her soft brown eyes met his blue, he gave her a small nod. She felt a weight form in the pit of her stomach, and she nodded back. Both the renegade angel and the impossible girl got up in unison, and Clara turned to the Doctor. Her voice was small.

"Yeah, time to go."


	18. Until Next Time

Saying goodbye to the Winchester boys and Cas really didn't feel right to Clara. Actually, she could go as far as saying it felt downright _wrong_. But here she was, standing outside the bunker, bag in hand, standing in silence with an angel of the Lord and two Winchester brothers leaving for God knows how long. It wasn't that she didn't want to go with the Doctor. Of course she did. The Doctor was her best friend, and he always would be. He needed her or he would start talking to himself endless and get lonely, and she depended on him. She had split herself into a million pieces just for him, something -according to her angel friend- really should've earned her a trip to the funny farm. That wasn't the kind of thing you could do, and just _leave_ afterward.

At the same time, however, she couldn't get rid of the feeling in her gut that _someone_ needed to keep eye on them. Cas did a decent job usually, but currently the angel was still injured, and it would be a while before he was watching over anyone. Not to mention, she really only had just learned everything the angel and the two brothers had gone through. The whole thing blew her mind. She knew that it must've taken a lot to separate the angel from his heavenly masters, but she had never imagined... they stopped Armageddon for crying out loud. Just two humans with the help of one angel. Even still... she didn't want anything else to happen to her boys. _I just want them safe._ It was the fact that both sides needed someone to keep an eye on them that made her nervous. She couldn't be in two places at once, after all.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the Doctor came back out of the TARDIS, the door making its familiar creak as it opened. All eyes turned to the Doctor, who had a black smudge of soot on his face. Other than that, he seemed rather cheery.

"The TARDIS is a bit upset from the paradoxes floating around, but she is definitely in working order. Should be easy enough to transport one Miss Clara Oswald back to Londontown before I start doing repairs."

Clara felt a firm, protective hand go on her shoulder, and turned to find Cas standing close behind her, eyeing the Doctor. Something clicked in her mind. _Cas doesn't trust the Doctor._ It shouldn't have surprised her, but it did. Cas and the Doctor were so similar, it wasn't possible for them to clash in the same way Dean and the Doctor did. However, the angel had seen her echoes. He had seen the amount of times that she had saved the Doctor, but he had also seen the amount of times that the Doctor had failed to save Clara. _He might trust the Doctor under other circumstances, but he doesn't trust him with me._ While the Doctor was talking to Sam and a sulky Dean in a lowered voice, Clara turned around to face the angel. A bit more carful than last time, she laced her arms around the angel, hugging him. The angel was a bit less awkward about returning the hug this time, resting his head on top of hers. She could've just been imagining it, but she was almost certain she felt the brush of a feathery wing on her arm.

"I'll be fine, Cas. You don't have to worry. Honestly. I've taken care of myself for 26 years, I can do it for a bit longer."

She felt his arms tighten around her slightly at these words, before he spoke.

"It isn't you I'm worried about."

Clara sighed, pausing a moment before she pulled away from the angel. Her brown eyes moved from the angel, momentarily going to the Doctor, who had managed to get into a conversation with Sam. Dean was watching Castiel and Clara out of the corner of his eye, trying to make it look like he wasn't looking.

"The Doctor isn't too bad. He has the right intentions at heart."

"Sometimes good intentions aren't always enough."

She glanced back at the blue-eyed angel, and saw that his eyes had gone distant. Clara got the feeling he was speaking from experience, so the words unnerved her a bit. She took a deep breath, before she forced a smile.

"Well, this isn't goodbye forever, right? If you are ever anywhere near London, I don't mind you dropping in. I'll have a cup of tea waiting for you. And maybe a slightly singed soufflé."

She remembered the soufflé that she had tried to make in the bunker, but it had turned out as burnt as the rest of them.

Clara saw what might be the ghost of a smile on the angel's face, and he responded.

"Take care of yourself, Clara."

"As long as you don't get yourself killed."

* * *

><p>"Now, remember. What we saw at the hotel. Our futures. That was only one version that has changed. Forget about it. It never happened."<p>

The Doctor was speaking to the two Winchesters, his light blue gaze serious.

"What hotel?"

"Exactly."

He looked between the two hunters, unsure of what to say. It was then Sam spoke up.

"It was an interesting experience. Not the strangest, admittedly, but definitely interesting to say the least."

Sam held out his hand to the Doctor, who shook it good-naturedly. Dean, on the other hand, had his arms crossed, still a bit defensive. It was then Clara and Cas walked over and all of them fell silent.

Clara smiled at the two Winchesters, and smirked slightly.

"Sam and Dean Winchester. You two are brilliant, you that? Don't let anyone tell you any different."

She took a step forward, first hugging Sam and getting enveloped in a bear hug. She then moved to Dean, forcing him to break his defensive posture so he would hug her back. It was to be noted that Dean's hug lasted a bit longer than Sam's. Unknown to the Doctor or Sam, Dean whispered something in the woman's ear that caused her to pause momentarily before she pulled away and acted as if he hadn't said anything.

"You are pretty awesome as well, Clara."

"Oh, I know that."

Dean smiled at her, before he realized the Doctor was still there and it immediately turned back into a frown. Sam spoke after a moment.

"Stay safe, Clara. Don't let him go do anything too crazy."

"Ditto. Don't let him do anything too crazy either. Or Cas."

She looked between them all, before she finally looked back at him. Clara nodded once to the Doctor. In response, the Doctor clapped his hands together. The two didn't even need to communicate with words, they were so used to each other. He began walking back to the TARDIS at a quick pace, before standing in the doorway.

"Alright then! Time we were off, don't you think?"

"There's one thing first." Clara looked over at the angel, who was looking at the blue box with a fascination.

"Think we've got time to show Cas the TARDIS?"

The Doctor's eyes twinkled, "I don't see why not," he walked into the TARDIS, leaving Clara to lead the angel into the machine.

* * *

><p>Castiel had to admit, whatever he was expecting the TARDIS to look like on the inside, he wasn't fully expecting this. The concept of the dimensions didn't confuse him. He had almost expected that part. In fact, Heaven was built almost in the same way. A bunch of little dimensions all piled on top of each other, each one paradise for a different person. It wasn't new technology to the angel.<p>

It was the fact that the TARDIS was so _alive_ that fascinated him. That the machine really had a soul, which under any other circumstances, he would've regarded as impossible. He had felt the machine quietly pulling at his grace from the moment he left the bunker, just at the back of his subconscious. The frequency the TARDIS was one was similar to that of angel radio, which was why it was so natural for the angel to tune into the machine and how it had caught his attention so many times over the years. The moment he stepped into the TARDIS, the machine hummed softly in greeting. The Doctor was leaning against the console, and he gave it a odd look when she hummed, looking between the console and the angel.

"So... what do you think? I can tell you that the TARDIS already has a high opinion of you. I wasn't even aware you had met before."

The angel kept an eye on his surrounds, momently trying to tune into the wavelength the TARDIS was on. The moment he tried to do so, the connection immediately happened. It was like opening the line to a phone call. She was more than a bit confusing.

"_Hello, sweetheart. Would you mind telling the Doctor for me that it was the brakes that demon messed with? Oh, the answer to your question is Clara is safe. Or had you asked it yet? The smell of dust after rain...my Angel and Sexy_."

After that, it got even more disjointed and a bit less intelligible. Some of it seemed like complete gibberish, but he decided that the part the TARDIS had told probably should be told to the Doctor in a timely fashion. The angel looked up at the Doctor, looking slightly puzzled.

"She wants you to know you need to check the brakes. Crowley apparently did something..."

It was the Doctor's turn to look confused.

"Wait, _what_?"

He paused for a moment, before he took out the sonic screwdriver and scanned the angel, and looked at the reading. He looked between the reading and Cas, looking startled. It caused Clara to unconsciously move closer to the angel in a worried, almost sisterly sort of fashion. It was a good way to describe the relationship between Clara and the angel. They were family. While the Doctor was her best friend, Castiel was her brother. Not by blood... but does that really matter?

"How are you doing that? You are actually tuning into the TARDIS' frequency. Only timelords can do that..."

Castiel eyebrows furrowed, "It is all just waves. Angel radio is similar to what the TARDIS speaks on."

The Doctor shook his head in disbelief, before storing his sonic screwdriver away again.

"I love new things."

Clara sighed, before she looked up at Castiel. She seemed reluctant to move away from him, as her hand was still on his forearm, but after another moment she walked forward to join the Doctor by the console. Not wanting to overstay his welcome (he heard the TARDIS whisper something like _"You are always welcome here, angel."_), he began moving back towards the door. Clara called after him.

"Until next time?"

He met her brown gaze, unsure of it that was true. Her eyes were sad, and he could see that she couldn't decide whether she should stay with the Doctor or with the Winchesters and Cas. It would put the angel's mind at ease if he knew she would no longer be traveling with the Doctor. At the same time, however, the alternative was her staying here with them. The amount of danger she would be put in the line of would be near infinite if she stayed here. She might be safer with the Doctor, if it came down to it. Also, it was her decision.

Still, he could not trust the Doctor.

If she kept traveling with the Doctor and he stayed in America with the Winchesters... it was unlikely that their paths would cross again. Even still, he found himself nodding in response to her statement.

"Until next time."

He stepped out of the TARDIS, and he shut the door behind him. With a metallic wheezing, groaning sound, the TARDIS disappeared, along with the whispers of the TARDIS' voice. He returned to place beside Dean and Sam. There was silence for a minute as they stared at the spot that the TARDIS has disappeared from. It was broken finally by Dean.

"Aww, _sonofabitch_."

Both Sam and Dean looked over at Dean... Sam slightly alarmed and Cas confused. Sam was the one to speak.

"What?"

Dean waved a hand to the patch of empty road that they were standing on in front of bunker. It seemed a bit more empty than usual, and Dean's next comment explained why.

"The Impala is still at the damn hotel."

200 miles away.

* * *

><p><strong>And that, my dear readers, is the end of episode 1.<strong>

**I love all of you for your reviews and support through the time I've been writing this, and just know that I love feedback. **

**(Also, tell me if you think I should keep episode 2 on this thread, or if I should make a new one for it. Your choice.)**


	19. Just an Old Friend Dropping By

**Episode Two jumps to the episode right after "Death in Heaven" and a alternate version after "Girls, Girls, Girls."**

* * *

><p><em>2 years later...<em>

It was the first day of Christmas vacation for Clara Oswald. Christmas was still a week away, but she hadn't done anything to plan for it. Nor was she going to. Clara wasn't really a religious person, mostly because she could accurately tell you what happened after death. There wasn't a point in having a "religion" if you had met angels and demons. And the Winchesters. Despite the fact she had died thousands of times, she had never made it all the way to Heaven or Hell. However, just because she hadn't made it there didn't mean she didn't have a good idea that the places existed.

She just had to believe Danny had ended up in a better place in the end. He was a good man. She had faith in the flawed system just enough to know that the love of her life would end up in Heaven, not Hell.

Clara was laying on the couch in front of the telly, curled up in a maroon blanket and facing away from it. She had seen this episode of _Eastenders_ so many times she knew what was going on without even looking. She was fine with just listening. Most of her days off had been like this. A repeated cycle of mourning and general boredom. Despite this, she didn't have it in her to pick up the phone and bother the Doctor about it. She had seen him a month ago, and he had informed her, to her surprise, that he had found Gallifrey. Missy hadn't been lying.

She knew that if she was him, she wouldn't want to be getting phone calls from her. He thought she was living happily with Danny, maybe even getting married or something. The Doctor had worried enough about her over the years. It was for the best. His full attention needed to be on reconstructing his planet, not on her.

Her spiral of generally depressing thoughts was interrupted when something that definitely not _Eastenders_ came on the television. Her eyebrows furrowed, and she rolled over to face the television. She was now even more twisted in the maroon blanket now, like a Christmas red mummy. Across the screen flashed in bright letters _Breaking News_. Clara's brown eyes peaked from above the red blanket drowsily. _Probably something to do with the royal family or something._ The voice of the newscaster interrupted her thoughts.

_"Coming to you live from the Tower of London in a few moments, we will be joined by Kate Lethbridge-Stewart...-"_

The Doctor's former companion immediately snapped to attention, pushing herself up onto her elbow. If Kate was talking to the media, she had definitely must've missed something. The older blonde woman was the face of UNIT, the taskforce based in London and other major cities that was meant to deal with any major alien threats. If she was making a statement to the news, she must've missed something. Clara kept listening. The reporter was still talking.

_"...-to talk about the large number of disappearances in most major countries across the world. For those who don't know, about a year ago there was a meteor shower that wasn't predicted by any major government space program. It was suspected that the meteors might have contained some type of metal that shielded it from the satellites...-"_

"Yeah, right. And I'm a Sontaran."

_"...-however, a few days ago information was leaked in UNIT that the strange disappearances -exactly 101 in number- match the exact amount of recorded meteors that fell from the sky that day. All had the same general circumstances. The person disappeared without any note or sign, despite that they come from good families. The only connection between all of the people was that they all seem to be in their prime of life and very religious in nature."_

Something about that triggered something in the back of her mind, though she didn't know what. People disappearing. Religious people in their late 20's and early 30's. _I should call Kate._ Clara began to untangle herself from the maroon blanket, all the while not daring to take her eyes off the television. Kate was now shown on the screen standing next to the reporter, and the woman was introducing her.

_"And now we go to Lethbridge-Stewart. What news do you wish to share with the public? What is UNIT doing about these disappearances? And, if I'm allowed to ask... do you think it alien?"_

_"Thank you, Pam. I am here just to confirm the leak. Yes, UNIT thinks that the meteor shower is definitely linked to the disappearances. Which means we have 101 missing person cases on our hands to look through from different parts of the world. I also wish to add that over 70% of these disappearances were in America, and only about 5% came from this country. Our thoughts and prayers go out to these missing people and UNIT is doing our best to put the pieces together. We are getting into contact with our best people now. The same specialists that took care of the most recent Cybermen invasion. Yes, we are quite certain we are dealing with an alien threat."_

_"Brigadier, what can the public do to help the investigation?"_

_"If anyone thinks they know something that could be beneficial to this case, please call us at UNIT's toll free number."_

_"That number will also be listed at the bottom of the page. Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming."_

As the usual show turned back on, Clara grabbed her cell phone off the table in front of her, hitting the number 5 speed dial. She had casually called UNIT up so many times after seeing stuff that seemed alien on the news, the teacher had actually ended up putting them on speed dial. However, as the she listened to the phone ring, there was a hard knock on her door that could have nearly knocked her door down. Clara sat up immediately, pausing for a moment before the first knock was succeeded by another loud knock.

"I'm coming, mate! Wait a moment!"

She got to her feet, the maroon blanket still over her shoulders. The phone line connected as she glanced at herself in the mirror, frowning at how messy her hair was currently and how she hadn't bothered to put makeup on. Plus the fact that she hadn't bothered getting out of her nightie and all that was covering it was a maroon blanket, Clara looked downright horrible. She spoke a little quieter into the phone.

"Yeah, connect me with Kate please. Yes, _that_ Kate. Just tell her it is Clara Oswald on the line. She'll answer."

Clara heard the line get put on hold momentarily, and she used that moment to answer the door. The former companion had the phone on speaker phone on the table so she would hear when Kate answered. She was sort of expecting it to be a neighbor or a mailman. However, she wasn't expecting the person she found standing at her door. Her brown eyes grew about three times the size they had been. She was glad she had put the phone down, because she would've dropped it otherwise. Her voice nearly broke.

"Oh my goodness, _Cas_."

Castiel stood on doorstep, a travel bag hanging over his shoulder. He looked more tired than the last time she had seen him. A lot more tired. Clara could almost go as far as saying he almost looked ill. Then it occurred to her. _He looks more human._

"You look terrible," the angel remarked, as way of a greeting.

"I would say it looks like you've taken a trip to Hell and back, but that might actually be true in your case."

Clara hadn't realized how much she had been missing the angel until he was standing in front of her again. It had been 2 full years since she had last seen the Winchesters and Cas. It felt like forever and a day. It was like all that grief and sadness came welling back up to the surface. Eleven regenerating, not trusting Twelve, losing Danny, then losing Twelve. It all hit her at once, drowning her again. It took her a moment to realize that a tear was sliding down her face again.

Without saying a word, Castiel stepped forward and enveloped the smaller woman in a hug, rest his chin on top of her head. In the back of her mind, the behavior registered as much more human than the angel's usual behavior, but she didn't care. She wrapped her arms around her old friend, resting her forehead against his chest. Tears reddened her eyes. She could've stood like that for a lot longer, however a familiar voice on the phone broke the momentary trance she was in.

_"Clara, it's Kate. What is it? Clara, are you there?"_

She pulled away from the angel, meeting his gaze momentarily, wiping tears from her eyes with the edge of the maroon blanket. He looked worried._ Of course he looks worried, you idiot. You just started crying._

"You're welcome to drop your stuff on the couch. Or in the spare room... or wherever you like. We... I think we need to catch up. On a lot. I'll make you a cup of tea..."

_"Clara? Are you there? Are you alright?"_

"After I take this phone call," she raised her voice, looking over her shoulder, "Hold on a sec, Kate!"

She smiled slightly at Castiel, before she turned and walked quickly back to the living room, scooping up the phone. She heard Castiel shut the door gingerly, following behind her. He kept an eye on her, dropping his travel bag on the edge of the sofa. She turned her full attention to the phone, leaving it on speaker.

"Sorry about that Kate. And old friend dropped by. Caught me off-guard. It isn't the Doctor, before you ask. Nothing to do with him."

_"What did you call about?"_

Clara paused for a moment, gathering her thoughts. Having an angel of the Lord staring at her wasn't helping in the least with the organization of her thoughts.

"I saw you on the news. You said you were gathering the same experts you had a month ago. I know that means the Doctor. I also know for a fact that he is very busy right now."

_"May I ask what is more important that 101 disappearances?"_

Something got Castiel's attention. The angel straightened slightly, looking at her with a bit more intensity than he had before. However, before the angel could speak, Clara responded to Kate.

"The Doctor found Gallifrey, Kate. He isn't going to be helping Earth for a while."

There was a pause on the other side of the line, _"That's good news for him, but that's bad news for Earth if we need his help."_

"You've managed without his help before. That's the reason I was calling. Currently I'm on break from work. If you want me to offer my expertise I would be glad to do so. I might not be as good as the Doctor, but I know my way around alien stuff quite well."

_"I think UNIT might want to take you up on that offer, Clara. All hands on deck. Do you need a ride to pick you up?"_

"Umm, no. I think I'll just walk or take a cab. Like I said. I just had an old friend stop by and I need to catch up with him first, if that's fine."

_"Oh, of course! Take your time. If we get any breakthroughs, we'll call."_

Clara slowly nodded, then remembered that Kate couldn't see her and she quickly responded.

"Yes, yes, that's fine. See you when I get there."

Clara hung up, setting the phone down on the table. She glanced over at Castiel, her eyebrows furrowed.

"What is it?"

"The 101 disappearances... those are vessels."

Clara was confused for a moment, before what he was talking about dawned on her. Vessels. Angel vessels. It was the only thing he could be talking about.

"No way... you're kidding."

"The meteor shower a year ago... the angels fell from Heaven. Those were not meteors, those were angels. The disappearances were the people the angels took as vessels."

Clara paused, before she walked back toward the kitchen.

"I think I'm going to need some tea to go with this story. A lot of tea and maybe some soufflé."


	20. Another Cup of Tea

Castiel's blue eyes followed Clara as she walked around the kitchen. Clara poured out the remaining tea that she had made an hour ago into two cups. Cas stared down at the cup of tea in front of him, taking a tentative sip. She refilled a kettle with water, setting it down on the stove top. The brown-haired woman pulled a tea bag from the cupboard, the same kind she had brought to the bunker a couple of years ago. She dropped the tea bag in and secured the top of the kettle before turning the burner on. She still had the red blanket wrapped around her like an oversized poncho. However, this wasn't what worried Cas.

She looked older. A lot older. Dark circles were under her eyes and she looked tired enough that it looked as if she might just fall over. The light that he was used to seeing in her eyes had faded. Also, when she had answered the door he had been almost convinced she was going break down completely. If the phone hadn't distracted her, he had a feeling they would still be in that doorway. It was very unlike her. He was used to her being more like a force of nature that could keep a timelord, an angel, and two hunters together. However, in this moment, she was more like a fragile china doll. _Something is very wrong._ The angel was worried for her, though it didn't show in his expression. However, his eyes continued to follow her as she moved through the room, until she finally slumped down into the chair next to Castiel. She took a sip of tea, before she made eye contact with the angel in front of her.

"Something is wrong."

Castiel stated it as a fact, not a question. He had no doubt in his mind that something wasn't right with one of his few friends. In response, the British woman took another long swig of tea, before setting the cup down in front of her. She ran a hand through her messy hair, before her gaze went back to the angel.

"I've had... a busy two years, Cas. Long story short... the Doctor regenerated into his twelfth incarnation soon after we left. He got older and a lot less... human. Actually... now that I think about it... he became a bit more angelic."

"He stopped caring."

"No, he still cared. At least... he still cared about me in general. He even became a bit obsessive over my safety. He might've regenerated, but he was still the Doctor. He just, didn't quite have a complete hold on humanity like he used to. He didn't quite understand human emotions anymore farther than a scientific level..."

Clara shook her head in a way that was to clear it. She took another sip of tea, and this time Castiel mirrored the action unconsciously. She spoke again after a second, touching a mechanical-looking bracelet on her wrist. He squinted slightly when he noticed it, staring at it for a moment. He didn't know much about electronics. Well, he knew absolutely nothing about electronics outside what was required to know when he had to use the phone Dean had taught him how to use.

"However, this," she remarked, indicating her own face, "isn't because of him. Not really."

She twirled the band around her wrist again, pausing and taking a deep breath.

"Not to sound like every romance novel ever, but it's because I met a man. A man that I happened to fall in love with. Also a man that I... caused the death of about a month ago."

Clara went silent, looking down so that her bangs covered her eyes. Castiel looked at her, tilting his head slightly to the side. He couldn't say he understood. He didn't. The only thing he could really compare the loss in Clara's eyes to was the look that he saw in Sam or Dean whenever one of them was dead. He had seen the same look in Sam when Dean was dead... then later when he had disappeared completely. Also the entire time Sam had been looking for his brother. It wasn't like there was a lost and found station for brothers that turned into demons. It had taken a while to find Dean.

Castiel spoke again after a moment of silence, "What was his name?"

Clara looked up at her, her eyes watery with tears. However, this time, the tears didn't fall.

"Danny Pink."

The angel simply nodded, taking another sip of the tea. Cas was silent for a moment, mentally tapping into angel radio for a moment and asking a question. _Is the soul of Danny Pink in Heaven?_ He thought for a moment, before he nodded slowly. He looked at Clara.

"I am rather certain that his soul resides in Heaven, if that is any reassurance to you, Clara."

She straightened, looking at him with a bit more focus than she had for the entire time he had been there. The words seemed to have what seemed to be a very calming effect on the mourning woman. He was relieved, as he wasn't quite sure how to handle... people in mourning. It wasn't something he... fully had a grasp of as an angel.

There was a slight pause, before Clara smiled slightly. She wiped her eyes, bobbing her head up and down.

"Yeah, it is a reassurance, Cas. Despite the fact you are probably the least reassuring being on this planet, that's reassuring."

She was interrupted for saying anything else when the kettle went off, causing her to jump a little. Castiel simply drank another swallow of tea, leaning to the side slightly to look at the steaming kettle.

"Umm... one second."

She got up from her chair, switching the burner off and pulling the kettle off the stove with a mitt as well as switching the pressure off. She set the kettle in the middle of the table before she sat back down. She cleared her throat when Castiel reached for the kettle.

"Don't touch it. It's still hot."

Castiel paused, before he retracted his hand again, looking down at his tea cup. There was a short silence while Clara studied the angel. After a moment, she spoke. Clara, Cas noted, sounded a bit more like herself

"Normally I have to force you to eat and drink, but now I need to warn you from touching the kettle too soon."

"I did just spend the last 15 hours on a plane. And part of the time in Iceland for some reason. It wasn't a very enjoyable experience."

"Hold up. _You took a plane?_ You are an angel... and you took a plane to London, why? You can fly."

He took another sip of tea, looking at her with a meaningful glance. Her mouth opened a fraction.

"You _can't_ fly? That's new... um, Castiel, what has happened in the last two years?"

Castiel sighed, setting down the cup of tea. He looked up momentarily to meet her gaze, before he began to explain what summarize what had happened in the last 2 years.

"You remember, before you left with the Doctor, he went with the Winchesters to go see the Scribe of God... Metatron?"

Clara nodded slightly, waving him to continue.

"Well, when Sam, Dean, and the Doctor got there, Metatron was already dead. He had been killed by a future version of Crowley, myself, and the Twelfth Doctor to prevent the future that Metatron had caused. A future that involved Dean replacing Crowley as the King of Hell."

"Wait... the future version of the-... oh, that explains why he forgot a large portion of his encounter with you. The moment he got in the TARDIS he said he was fuzzy on the details of what had happened. Not to mention... _Dean replacing Crowley as the King?_!"

Clara sat up a little straighter, concern touching her brown eyes. Cas nodded in response, before he began to speak again.

"It's why the future selves went into the past and stopped Metatron. However, despite the fact that it wasn't a 'fixed point in time' as you call it... Metatron wasn't supposed to die then."

"What do you mean?"

"To put it into simple terms, God stepped in an revived Metatron so the events that needed to come to pass as they were supposed to. At least, that is what I got from the news in Heaven and from seeing the Scribe alive again."

Clara ran a hand through her hair, leaning back in her chair and finishing off her cup of tea in one, long swig.

"...God? _The_ God?"

"I didn't believe it at first either, and I probably still would believe it if I hadn't been mysteriously revived by the same person over recent years without reason."

Clara set down her cup, rubbing her temples.

"Alright, continue."

"About a week after the TARDIS left, I left the bunker on a mission to get pie for Dean. When I left the store I was confronted by Metatron. He said that God had a plan to lock the gates of Heaven for a little while... so the angels would work out their problems without hurting any more humans. I believed him. While Sam was completing the demon trials to close the gates of Hell, I began the apparent trials to close the gates of Heaven. I saw it as an opportunity to keep humanity safe from both Heaven and Hell forever."

"I'm sensing there's a _but_ to all of this."

"Metatron tricked me. The steps he was making me take were not the steps of the trials, but they were the ingredients for a spell. A spell to make all the angels fall from Heaven and onto Earth. One hundred and one angels in total survived the fall and found vessels. The rest burned up. The final ingredient was my grace."

Clara's eyes widened, and she covered her mouth with her hand. She was silent for a moment before she spoke. Her eyes followed his cup as the angel took another sip of tea, emptying the cup. Automatically, she grabbed the mitt again refilled the two cups on the table. The liquid was steaming hot.

"Cas... does that mean you're human? Like... actually human."

"I was, for a time. Then I got captured by a faction of angels and I needed to resort to... certain measures. I had to steal another angel's grace."

As if on cue, Castiel suddenly broke into a small fit of coughing. Clara stiffened, obviously very unused to something so... so human happening to Cas. She seemed to be resisting her maternal urge to move to his side, wrap him in a blanket, and force tea down his throat. When the coughing subsided, their eyes met.

"You're dying."

He didn't responded, but he had a feeling his silence was enough for her to understand. He continued with the story.

"The shortened version of what happened after was this. Dean took on the Mark of Cain to kill Metatron. They fought, and Dean got killed."

"Dean's dead?!"

He held up a hand, and she quieted down, though her eyes had grown to the size of dinner plates. It wasn't up until now that he really realized how much she cared for Dean and Sam in addition to himself.

"Metatron tried to turn Heaven in his favor and he almost did. I outsmarted him. We regained access to Heaven. Metatron is now in a cell in Heaven. As for Dean... because he had the Mark when he died and the First Blade -a story for another day- it turned him into a demon."

"Dean's... _a demon_?!"

"Up until a few weeks ago, yes. Sam finally caught up to him and captured him. We purified him through the ritual of purified blood. Dean is human, for now. However, he still has the Mark of Cain. Despite the fact that we have gotten the First Blade as far from him as possible, it is still only matter of time until the Mark becomes an issue again. A year or two if we are lucky. A few months if not."

Clara picked up her glass of tea, blowing at it before taking a small sip. Castiel mirrored her.

"So... how does your coming here to visit me fit into all of this. Not that I am not incredibly grateful to see you..."

"As I said... Heaven is more peaceful than it has been in years. Even before the Apocalypse, I don't think it was ever like this. However, there are still some rouge angels who remain on Earth. I am just gathering them back up, getting them back to Heaven before they cause any damage. One of these rouge angels is in London. Arariel. He's already caused a bit of trouble, intentional or not. There has been a bit of flooding in the UK recently, hasn't there?"

Clara paused, before nodding slightly, "A bit more than usual but it is a bit hard to tell as London get strange weather anyway. I didn't think anything of it. So you are here to find Arariel and get him back to Heaven? I'm glad you visited. I can help you look, if you want. After I... do something about UNIT. They are still going to want to know where those 101 people went, Cas. It's going to be on the news until then."

"You could just tell them the truth. Angels taking vessels."

"They are alien hunters. They are not going to be believe in angels just because I said so... I need to think of some excuse..."

In the other room, you could here the television switch to the news. 101 was one of the first word said.

"Before _#missing101_ starts trending on Twitter."


	21. Christmas Shopping with Cas and Clara

Clara was silent for a while, processing the new information that the angel had told her. A lot had happened, on both sides of the Pond, it seemed. She knew she shouldn't be too surprised. It had been 2 years. A lot could happen in that amount of time. Especially when you live life on the edge like they all did, by choice or not. After a while though, Clara began to tire of the temporary silence. It actually brought an idea to her mind. They probably had another few hours before Kate expected them to come in... so why not? She got to her feet after a moment, leaving the maroon blanket she had been wearing over her ever since Castiel had arrived. She was still in her night clothes, which consisted of a black tank top and a white pair of sleep pants. Clara took a sip of her tea before she set it back down on the table with a small thump.

"Castiel, we are going to go to the store and we are going to get a tree. After which, you are going to help me put up a Christmas tree."

She didn't know where the idea came from, but it just seemed like a good idea. He was an angel of the Lord, and Christmas was in only a matter of days. She had a strong urge to embrace the Christmas spirit while she had an actual friend around instead of moping around any longer. For some reason, the angel's appearance and reassurance had started her on the path of moving on more than the Doctor or her family members had. Possibly because he was the only being she knew of that could confirm Danny was in a better place instead of one that was worse.

Either way, she was going to convince the angel to help her put up a tree. Even if she had to drag him to the nearest Asda to help her choose a tree.

Castiel looked momentarily confused, before he tilted his head in a questioning way. He paused a long moment before he spoke.

"Should I ask why?"

Clara walked over to the angel, gently pulling the teacup from his hands and pulling him to his feet, leaning back on her heels to gain enough leverage to do so.

"Because it is Christmas in a few days and I have neglected to do so."

"Well...-"

"And don't tell be Christmas isn't actually on December 25th. I don't care. We are putting up a Christmas tree. Now, I am going to go get dressed."

Clara walked into the living room, and the angel followed behind her automatically. She noted he had grabbed his cup of tea before doing so. The television had switch off the news again, and was now playing another rerun of _Eastenders_.

"Aren't you dressed now...?"

"Out of my night clothes, love. Cas, you never have to change clothes because you are an angel. Just remember back to your time as a human and having to change clothes daily. Stay in here."

She grinned at him, before she went into her bedroom, shutting the door behind her quickly. She changed quickly, deciding to wear a mahogany pantsuit she hadn't worn in a while. She avoided the thought that the last time she had worn it was when Danny was alive. She should be worried about the fact that she could hear Castiel coughing again in her living room. Her jaw clenched. She was worried for him. Clara knew he was sick but she had no idea about what she could do about it.

After she switched clothing, she grabbed a brush, opening the door and she marched out, all the while brushing out the tangles that had made their way into her hair. She found Castiel sitting on the couch... watching the television with his head slightly tilted head and sipping tea. The angel never looked more British. He looked up at her when she came in, watching her brush through her hair. She noted the odd look he was giving her.

"What? Never seen someone brush their hair before?"

Silence. It occurred to Clara that there was a good chance that the angel might not have seen someone brush their hair before. She had only ever seen him around the Winchesters... and actually no other females other than her. If there were females around, she would probably want their name and number if at all possible. It took a very certain mix of stubbornness and intelligence to keep Team Free Will in line.

"Maybe you haven't. Brushing hair untangles it. Keeps it looking nice and straight. You don't end up looking this good without brushing your hair. Now, come on. We are going Christmas tree shopping."

Castiel sighed, finishing his cup of tea before he got to his feet.

"I still don't understand why we need to get a tree."

"You don't have to understand it. Come on!"

Clara grabbed the door handle and pulled it open, leading him out of the door.

* * *

><p>Five minutes and a cold walk later, they stood in front of an Asda. Clara quickly moved into the store, as she was actually shivering from the cold. Castiel trailed behind, his blue eyes flashing around to look at every face that passed them. As Clara got a cart, she noted that the angel had come to a standing stop, watching the people as they passed. And there were a lot of people. Last minute Christmas shoppers were everywhere with it being so close to Christmas day in the middle of London. However, she had a feeling she knew what he was doing. She pulled up the cart next to the angel, leaning forward on it. A couple of rushing shoppers filed around them like waves.<p>

"If you are looking for Arariel, you are probably not going to find him wandering around an Asda. Angels are not really the type to look into the retail and consumerism side of Christmas."

"Then why did you bring me here?"

Clara considered this for a moment, waving Castiel along as she pushed the cart forward past the greeter. She paused momentarily, getting her bearings in the store and quickly locating the Christmas section, making sure that Castiel was behind her every few seconds or so. It wasn't long before she got them both surrounded by Christmas trees and décor.

"Why do you think? I doubt you've ever stepped foot in a superstore before. Not to mention, its funny," she answered.

She said this as she looked up at the angel, realizing that he was actually standing next to a miniature yard statue of an angel. Well, a classical glitter halo and wings in all white style of angel, anyway. Clara grinned widely, somehow finding it more than a little amusing for some reason.

He tilted his head at her, following her gaze to the yard statue.

"Isn't this what the humans perceive angels to look like?"

"Quite possibly."

Clara took out her phone, taking a quick photo of Castiel next to the angel statue.

"I'm going to need you to give me Dean's number so I can send this to him later... mostly because I want to show him photo evidence that I got you into a store, partly because I wouldn't mind having a chat with him and his brother if at all possible."

"Were we not coming here to buy a pine tree, or did we just come here so you could take a picture of me?"

In response, Clara snapped another quick picture of him, causing the angel to blink.

"Both of those reasons. Now...-"

Clara turned around to face the trees, away from Castiel. Asda wasn't known for its Christmas tree collection, but it was the easiest place to get to on from where Clara lived.

"-...which tree to do you thing looks best and would fit in the apartment?"

She glanced over at him as he walked up to stand next to her.

"They all look like plastic to me."

"That's because they _are_ all plastic. This is the center of London. No one has a actual house. They just have flats. If we went out of town be might find a real tree... but that would take a while. Not to mention I don't feel like cleaning up a bunch of pine needles from my floor."

"If you don't want the pine needles on your floor, why put a tree in your house in the first place?"

"Because it's Christmas."

"I am rather certain there were no pine trees in Jerusalem during the birth of Christ. Isn't that the whole point of this holiday?"

"Probably. We still need to get a tree though. And some tinsel and stuff to put on the tree. Maybe we can even put you on top of the tree."

"...why would I be on top of a pine tree?"

"You are supposed to put an angel at the top of the Christmas tree. Or a star with a little light inside of it."

"I think I would prefer putting a star on top of the tree, if you wouldn't mind."

Clara laughed, for the first time in what felt like weeks. Her classic smirk returned to her face. She nudged the angel in the shoulder, before she walked into the aisle of trees, pushing the cart ahead of her. There were a number of different trees, before she finally stopped in front of a dark green one that was a good 2 feet over her head. She glanced over at the angel, who was looking at one of the tree with fake snow, gently poking at it in a puzzled way. She pointed to the tree she was next to.

"Cas, what about this one?"

The angel straightened, looking over at the tree she was pointing to. He stared at it in an analytical way for a moment, before he shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't see what separates that tree from the rest of them."

"You are no fun, Cas. Come on, help me get the box into the cart. The box happens to be taller than I am. By a lot."

She pulled the box out of its location about halfway, before she looked over at the angel for assistance. Castiel walked over slowly, picking up one side of the box and helping Clara move into the cart. While it actually was quite heavy for Clara, it didn't even seem like a strain for the angel. _Why should it be?_ After they had gotten the box into the cart, she looked up at him.

"You are carrying the tree the 2 blocks home."

Castiel responded with a tilt of the head, but before he could reply she swerved the cart around him, moving toward the area that had tinsel and lights. She immediately picked out a long string of white Christmas lights and some dark red tinsel. She turned around to question the angel about what color star she should get, when she discovered Castiel was no longer behind her. In fact, he wasn't even on the same aisle.

"Cas... where'd you go?"

When there was no reply, her eyebrows furrowed, and she backtracked to the aisle before to find that also empty. _Of course I managed to lose the angel in the superstore. Should have seen this one coming. _Clara stopped her cart at the side of the aisle so no shoppers messed with the cart. Without a pause, she abandoned her cart and began to look up and down aisles. First, she moved up and down the aisles in the Christmas section a bit more thoroughly than she had previously. He might've just gotten distracted with something shiny and went in another direction. Or something.

She didn't want to think too hard on the category of all the "or something" type of thing that could have occurred in that millisecond to distract Castiel.

"I am worrying to much," she murmured to herself quietly, trying to convince herself that it was fine that she had lost the angel momentarily, "He's Cas. Something shiny could've distracted him."

Deciding the angel wasn't in the Christmas section, she went back and got her cart with the Christmas tree. However, as she rolled out of the Christmas section of the Asda and toward the front of the store, a loud crash echoed from the back side of the store, causing there to be a momentary silence in the store. There was a moment of silence that lasted a few seconds, before it was broken by a few screams. _Oh dear._ She couldn't see what had happened, but she had a very good idea who might be in the centre of that chaos.

With a short hesitation, before she broke into a run, rolling the cart toward the entrance and pushing it forward and out the door. It had the desired effect. Alarms went off all around the store as the unbought items went past the sensors. Shoppers stopped in their tracks, staring at her. She pointed in the direction of the shouts and crashing. At the top of her lungs, she shouted, "Everybody out!"

Immediately, the shoppers abandoned their stuff (or some taking advantage of the chaos and stealing their stuff) and streaming out the door in mass. _I can't believe that worked. Has London actually gotten used to emergencies? _Clara wasn't among them.

She let her cart roll out the door without her, and she began running in the direction of the screams. She weaved through displays and through the tide of panicked Christmas shoppers. There were so many people here. It took her a few moments to realize that there was an actual _tide _moving with the people. Before she knew it, she was up to her ankles in water and it was only rising. It made her nervous that she might end up losing her footing and get run over by people. She had to jump behind a clothing rack to avoid getting stabbed with a lamp someone ran past with. She paused, before making a split decision to cut through the clothing section to get to where the screams were coming from.

It was in the electronics' section where the problem was, which made her count her lucky stars she wasn't getting electrocuted right now. Surprisingly, it wasn't Castiel who was a part of the fight in the Asda. In fact, the angel came out of the shoe section the same time Clara came out of the clothing section, his tan trench coat fanning out behind him, as the water was easily up to their thighs now. The angel's power might have something to do with her not getting electrocuted, though she had no idea. She made eye contact with him, before both Castiel and the Doctor's companion stepped back, away from the troublemaker.

By troublemaker, one would mean the full-sized and angry shark that had materialized in the middle of the electronics' section. Along with a half a river-worth of ocean water. Clara slowly moved toward the angel, not taking her eyes off the shark as she moved around the room. It hadn't noticed them... yet. It was too busy trying to move from its grounded position on a counter, raised from the water. She spoke when she was about two yards from him.

"Cas, could you please explain to me how the bloody shark got here?"

"Arariel. He's the angel that, officially, is in charge of the waters of the Earth. That includes things in the water He either can't control his powers anymore or...-"

Castiel broke off, grabbing Clara's arm as he spoke, guiding her backwards away from the shark as he spoke. His blue eyes didn't separate from the shark, even as the water slowly kept rising. _It isn't like the Asda has drains in the middle of the store. If the doors don't stay open, this water is going to be over our heads soon and we will be sharkmeat. _As this thought came, she instinctive grabbed the fabric of the angel's trench coat. She didn't know where it came from, as she normally wasn't afraid of water. However, when there was a shark in the water, different story completely.

"-...or he knows we are here and this is a planned way for setting us off his trail," he finished, his voice lowered.

"And how do we take care of this problem exactly?" Clara's voice was lowered to a volume matching the angel's.

In response, the angel's blade slide down from his sleeve, and he made eye contact with Clara.

"You're going to kill it?"

"We don't have a choice. I don't have the power to transport it back, and we are to far to return it to the ocean. If we don't kill it, it will kill us and other people."

Clara went silent. She didn't like it. Despite the fact it was a shark, it was innocent in all of this. It didn't ask to get pulled out of the ocean and into an Asda. At the same time, she knew the angel had a point. Like many of the situations when involving hunters and the supernatural, it was kill or be killed. There was no in between. Sometimes there was no good choice, and you just had to choose the lesser of two evils. Clara understood that more than she would have liked to. It was this reason she slowly began to nodded, removing her hand from the angel's coat as the angel let go of her arm.

"Just be careful, Cas. Do not get hurt," she murmured. She got a small nod from Castiel, and with a small hesitation, he shrugged off his coat and handed it to Clara.

Cas began moving forward, his movements slowed down by the water, which had thankfully stopped rising as it made it to Clara's waist. The shark was breaking out of its confused gaze now, and now was doing more to roll itself off its beached position on the counter. Clara watched as the angel moved forward with his blade in hand. Then the shark saw the glint of the blade... and Cas. The shark knew it was no longer alone. Quicker than Clara thought a shark could move, it pushed itself off the counter and toward Castiel with its jaws wide. She could see the absurd number of teeth that were in its mouth. She tensed up, some gut instinct telling her to put herself between Cas and the current danger. However, it wasn't necessary. The angel stepped to the side, and in one fluid motion he stabbed into the shark's side, pushing the blade in deeply. Blood stained the water around the angel, and it was all over before it even began.

* * *

><p>They arrived back at Clara's apartment with items that included a 7 foot Christmas tree, an assortment of ornaments, lights, tinsel, and silver star to put on top of the tree. About 4 hours had passed since they had left the apartment earlier. It had been luck that they had managed to keep their stuff. It involved rolling a shopping cart a few blocks, all the while avoiding the hovering UNIT agents. She wanted to decorate the tree with her angel, <em>then<em> she could deal with international emergencies involving missing people, sharks, and angels. The television was a still on, however it had switched officially to the news now. They weren't covering the 101 disappearances currently, which she was thankful for. They were covering the mysterious appearance of a shark in the middle of an Asda. According to the news, they said something about terrorists and drainage pipes.

The first thing that she did was to grab Castiel something not wet from her closet that might fit the angel. All she had that would sort of fit him was a light blue button-down shirt that had belonged to her dad and a matching black pair of pants. She found a white tie that would go with it. He gave her an odd look when she handed him a new set of clothing.

"You can't just wander around and be soaking wet, angel," she remarked, her voice not leaving room for argument, "Change out of those wet clothes and meet me back in here, got it?"

There was a pause like the angel might protest, but he didn't he moved in the direction of the bathroom and shut the door behind him. Clara smiled slightly, before she went back into her room to switch into something dry. She opted for a Christmas green dress with black stockings. She took one glance of her hair in the mirror before she decided to pull it into a messy bun. When she returned to the living room, Castiel was sitting on the couch, wearing the change of clothes that Clara had given him, in addition to his trench coat. How the angel had managed to dry said coat was a mystery to Clara.

"Now, we put up the tree."

She opened a drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors, beginning to open up the tree box. Castiel had sat down on the couch, and on Clara's orders he was opening the box that contained the lights. Having a little less patience than Clara on the matter, he took out his angel blade, slicing the tape off the box and sliding his angel blade back up his sleeve before Clara noticed. When she had gotten the top of the box open, she called the angel over to help her get the tree out of the box and to put it into the corner beside the telly. Clara took a step to look at the tree for a moment, before she felt a nudge on her shoulder. She glanced back at the angel to find that he had somehow gotten himself tangled up in the Christmas light. He had a look on his face like a pouty puppy.

"How on earth did you manage to get yourself tangled in those lights so fast?"

A confused paused. "I don't know."

With a sigh, Clara walked around the angel to find the end of the lights before she began to untangle the angel from the lights. It took a good five minutes to untangle something that had taken only five seconds to do. With a grin at him, she walked over to the tree and strung up the lights.

"I'll put the tinsel up so you don't end up tangled again. You put up the rest of the stuff."

The woman grabbed the dark red tinsel, as well as grabbing the shopping bag that contained ornaments and the star for the top of the tree to Cas. The angel glanced in the bag, before pulling out a tiny ornament in the shape of a stereotypical angel. He tilted his head at her, which she returned with a smile before she began to circle the tree to put on the tinsel. With a small sigh, the angel began to help Clara decorate the tree.

Just as she got the lights to the tree and star plugged in after everything was finished, two things happened at once. _Typical._

There was a loud knock on the door and the phone began ringing. She sighed, exchanging a look with the angel.

"We never get a break, do we?"

Before Castiel could respond, there was another loud knock at the door.

"It seems not."

Clara groaned, scooping up the phone and tossing the phone to Cas.

"Put it on speaker while I answer the door. Keep 'er busy. It'll be Kate."

Cas paused, before he nodded slowly before answering the phone.

"Hello?"

While Cas kept Kate busy... however he managed that, she went to answer the door. She unlocked it, pulling it open. She was only half surprised to find 4 UNIT soldiers and Kate Lethbridge-Stewart on her doorstep, a phone in her hand. Clara forced a smile, rather glad that she had put her hair in a bun now, as it hide the wet tips of her hair.

"Hello Kate. Hello UNIT. Rather glad you didn't break my door down this time."


End file.
